Previous Special Events

Tama Matsuoka Wong, forager for the exclusive New York restaurant Daniel, reveals how to locate, identify, and harvest wild plants for the dinner table. In Foraged Flavor: Finding Fabulous Ingredients in Your Backyard or Farmer’s Market, she and co-author Eddy Leroux not only reveal their favorite 71 foraged plants, but explore the best ways to prepare each ingredient for maximum flavor and nutrition. Foraged Flavor has been nominated for a 2013 James Beard Foundation Book Award.

Presented by Michelle Brown

The Kansas City Public Library is hosting Money Smart Month adult programs across all Library locations during April 2013. Topics range from budgeting to investing to effective couponing.

The Library will waive up to $30 in overdue fines and fees for any Kansas City Public Library cardholder who attends one or more of the events.

Diane Eickhoff and Aaron Barnhart offer a new way to appreciate local history with The Big Divide, a travel book that chronologically examines historic sites along the Kansas-Missouri border. From pre-history through the Border War, Civil War, and on to the 20th Century, this guide employs point-by-point directions, photos, and maps to explore the region’s rich past.

The six-week America’s Music program is a film and discussion series that looks at popular music from blues to bluegrass, Broadway to rock ‘n’ roll. Each event features films followed by a discussion (and frequently performances) led by UMKC musicologist Andrew Granade.

Television newsman Jim Lehrer has presided over 12 presidential and vice-presidential debates and written about them in his 2011 memoir Tension City. Now, MacNeil/Lehrer Production has published Debating Our Destiny, a multimedia-enhanced ebook by University of Montana journalism professor Lee Banville on the history of presidential debates.

Presented by the Financial Planners Association

The Kansas City Public Library is hosting Money Smart Month adult programs across all Library locations during April 2013. Topics range from budgeting to investing to effective couponing.

The Library will waive up to $30 in overdue fines and fees for any Kansas City Public Library cardholder who attends one or more of the events.

Beginning with their regular gig in the Plantation Grill at Kansas City’s Muehlebach Hotel, the Coon-Sanders Nighthawk Orchestra in the 1920s took the Midwest, and then the entire nation, by storm. UMKC jazz expert Chuck Haddix follows the rise and fall of the band that had hit recordings like “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “When You’re Smiling,” “The Flippity Flop,” “Kansas City Kitty,” “I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “Harlem Madness,” and “What A Girl! What A Night!”

Think you’re film literate? Not until you’ve experienced the masterpieces of world cinema presented as part of this new series. Former Kansas City Star film critic Robert W. Butler (now a member of the Library’s Public Affairs staff) provides opening and closing remarks.

The Vox Narro project hosts an afternoon of traditional and contemporary Kurdish poetry, music, and dance, plus an introduction to Kurdish literature, culture, and history. Following the presentations, sample a variety of Kurdish cuisine.

Presented by Michelle Brown

The Kansas City Public Library is hosting Money Smart Month adult programs across all Library locations during April 2013. Topics range from budgeting to investing to effective couponing.

The Library will waive up to $30 in overdue fines and fees for any Kansas City Public Library cardholder who attends one or more of the events.