Of Stones and Feathers chronicles the epic journey of Jason and his paper clip friend, Swan, in their search for the Lost Land of the Golden Pond of Great Happiness. This courageous journey takes them through the heart of our town s public park system beginning with the Sculpture Garden of the Rockhill Museum of Art and ending in Penn Valley Park. Along the way, Jason and Swan not only discover happiness (on the second try), they overcome the Curse of Dullness placed upon our town ages ago by a Wealthy but Wicked Witch. It is a curse strictly enforced by her favorite nephew, the Awful Wizard of Was, who just happens to reside on the top floor of the art museum. Assisting with ending the Curse of Dullness and bringing down the Awful Wizard of Was are the children of this town, our town, the very town in which we live. Only the imagination of children can end deadly curses as Of Stones and Feathers sets out to prove.

Of Stones and Feathers

Children's Books

Roger Coleman

Literature & Fiction

Chandler Lake Books

Anti-black racism still infects American society. African Americans are more likely than whites to be killed by police, to be pulled over, arrested, imprisoned, and executed. They are more likely to be turned down for a job or offered a bad home loan than equally qualified whites. The killing of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, triggered riots. A white terrorist massacred black worshipers in Charleston, South Carolina. Eight black churches were burned in the South in ten days. Kansas Citians, like so many others across the nation, wonder, “Could it happen here?” The answer lies in this study of Kansas City’s darkest moments—slavery, the border war, the Civil War, bombings of black homes, lynchings, the segregation of neighborhoods and schools, the civil rights struggle, the Black Panther movement, the 1968 race riot, assassinations in the 1970s, the infamous Missouri v. Jenkins U.S. Supreme Court case, and the racial inequities that still plague Kansas City today. Threaded throughout Racism in Kansas City are stories of those who fought ardently against racist policies...and won. Racism in Kansas City, in the end, offers readers a hopeful message: with awareness comes understanding, then a willingness to push for positive social change. To contact the author for speaking engagements or to purchase bulk orders at a discount rate, please email chandlerlakebooks@gmail.com. PRAISE FOR RACISM IN KANSAS CITY “Racism in Kansas City: A Short History should be mandatory reading beginning with our middle school children and ending with parents and other adults.” - Alvin Brooks, from the Foreword “Now more than ever, we need to have a serious conversation about race. This book is a good place to start.” - Charles E. Coulter, author of Take Up the Black Man’s Burden: Kansas City’s African American Communities, 1865-1939 “Racism in Kansas City represents an exhaustive body of research that should be ‘must reading’ for anyone exploring African-American history in Kansas City and the region. Griffin has distilled his results into an often enlightening account of the trials endured by black Kansas Citians.” - Monroe Dodd, Kansas City historian and author “Racism in Kansas City: A Short History is the most important must read book of 2015!!!” - Tony, blogger at Tony’s Kansas City

Racism in Kansas City: A Short History

History

Griffin, G.S.

Americas

“In this hugely effective debut, Tom Carr sheds keen illumination upon a regional inventory of killers, kooks, cutthroats and the aggressively unhinged. The tales are horrific and humorous by turns — grisly, goofy, poignant dispatches expertly summated by a skilled veteran reporter who’s no stranger to the back stairs habituated by a true sleuth. Story telling at its fully imagined best.”
— Ben Hamper, bestselling author of Rivethead
Enhanced with the inclusion of a profusion of illustrations, "Blood on the Mitten: Infamous Michigan Murders 1700s to Present" is a consistently compelling read from beginning to end. Exceptionally well researched, written, organized and presented, "Blood on the Mitten" is unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library American History collections in general, and Michigan History supplemental studies reading lists in particular.—Small Press Bookwatch, Midwest Book Review
Before Michigan became a state, there were witch trials, scalp collectors, dirty sports, and a massacre of epic proportions. The lumber era that followed made Michigan as much of a wild, wild west as Deadwood. And Prohibition allowed a group of Detroit thugs to run roughshod over even the likes of Al Capone.
There’s more:
• A father who shoots his daughter and friends for being hippies, just as an eerily similar tale hits the silver screen
• A widow whose love of dressing up leaves a trail of poisoned relatives across the Lower Peninsula
• A lawless Upper Peninsula town that not only hangs two criminals without trial, but forces women to lie with the corpses
• A murder that spread its victim’s body parts along I-75 from Detroit to Pellston
In Blood on the Mitten, crimes of passion, crimes of necessity and cold, calculated evil take on flesh, bones and blood. These 57 illustrated, read-out loud tales from across time also look at the historical context of murder, in Michigan and beyond.
Michigan’s blood-red past includes crooked sheriffs, ruthless gangsters, serial killers, mass murderers, Wild West-style bandits, and pirates. These miscreants, and more, do their dastardly deeds in Blood on the Mitten, an aptly-titled case book documenting the more infamous scenes in Michigan history. Each chapter contains a “Murder Map”—a unique guide for the stout-of-heart who would like to follow in the footsteps of the characters who doused the Mitten with blood-spatter. True crime aficionados as well as those new to the genre will be spellbound by this well-written and informative book.
— Tobin T. Buhk, author of True Crime: Michigan, Skeletons in the Closet: Stories from the County Morgue and other historical books “with a dark twist”
Author Tom Carr shows his reportorial chops with crisp, concise prose enhanced by a multitude of historical photographs, including miscellaneous graphics. Carr blends interesting content with some visually gruesome graphics. This collection is one that Michigan history bibliophiles will want on their shelves.
— Joseph Heywood author of the Woods Cop mysteries, based on conservation officers in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, The Snowily, nonfiction and poetry

Blood on the Mitten: Infamous Michigan Murders 1700s to Present

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Carr, Tom

Mystery

GROWING UP UNDER HITLER, SURVIVING THE WAR, TAKING TO THE SKIES ... A STORY OF ONE WOMAN'S MARVELOUS JOURNEY TO ROMANCE AND LONG-TERM HAPPINESS. It was 1937 and the sinister red, white, and black banners of National Socialism had already begun to decorate the streets of German cities. Marlis Mann's father had lost his job when he refused membership in "the party" and had moved his family west to look for work. But, within three short years, Germany was at war and he would take them back home seeking safety. He spent 10 full years of his young life as a Russian prisoner; he held no sympathy for the new German nationalism. But he was a survivor. They were hard-working young parents trying to give their two young girls a normal childhood, but other forces prevailed. As bombs fell and thousands of their fellow citizens lost their homes and their lives, the girls' teachers celebrated every German victory and promised "the war will be over by Christmas." But it would rage on for five more Christmases. The older sister would be evacuated to safety and the younger would be pulled from her bombed-out school and later survive the strafing of an American warplane as she pedaled her bicycle home. And then everything changed. The Americans arrived to drive the German troops from their hometown and the girls, now almost teenagers, first heard the strains of American jazz and popular music from the American army encampment nearby. First one, then the other of these adventurous young girls, now young women, were drawn to the new post-war German airlines and a life in the sky when only one in a thousand was chosen for such work. The lives of these two stewardesses soon culminated in the kind of romance and long-term happiness that is still the stuff of movies and storybooks. Here is Marlis Mann's story ....

Becoming Marlis Mann: Growing Up Under Hitler, Surviving the War, Making a Life

Tom, Skinner

Marlis Mann

World

JOHN ERICSSON AND THE ENGINES OF EXILE Leaving behind financial ruin in their ancestral Swedish village, in 1810 the Ericsson family brought their small children across the country, entering a dynamic project to link Sweden’s two boundary seas with a warship canal. This move launched John Ericsson, 7, and his brother Nils, 8, into futures of great achievement. John would, in the 1830s, in England, invent the world’s first practical marine propeller and, in the 1860s, in America, invent a whole new kind of warship, the USS Monitor. Nils’ itinerary to fame lifted him by stages, like locks in the Swedish canals he built, before he was put in charge of creating Sweden’s new railroad network. John’s path, though, traversed far stormy waters of rejection, humiliation, injustice and even imprisonment. But in 1862 John was credited with having saved the Union’s blockade of the rebellious South and became an American hero. Why, then, did John continually pledge fealty to Sweden, where he never again set foot? Clues to this mystery may be found in his family’s exodus from their village, or in John’s lifelong rivalry with Nils, or in John’s guilty neglect of his illegitimate Swedish son, Hjalmar, whom he had left behind in Nils’ family. All these are events of this book, but it especially focuses on the incursion into John Ericsson’s life in New York City, in 1876, of the Swedish visitor he least wanted to see. Hjalmar Elworth, who had succeeded Nils as a director of the new Swedish railroad system, came to see our Centennial Exhibition and then to cross America on our new Transcontinental Railroad. He also asked, at 52 years of age, to meet his father for the very first time. The meeting that Ericsson first rebuffed and then agreed to might be called the last of John’s great departures. Over the next 11 years, his many letters to his son charted Ericsson’s surprising discoveries not only in Nature, but in his own nature.

John Ericsson and the Engines of Exile

Biographies & Memoirs

Paul, David Mel

Leaders & Notable People

In 1960 a Cuban ophthalmologist named Felix Sabates was completing his medical training in Boston and looking forward to a bright future in Havana when he received a telephone call that destroyed his dreams. "You can't come home," his father said. Fidel Castro had seized power in Cuba the year before and was now clearly imposing a communist dictatorship. Young Dr. Sabates found himself stranded in a foreign country, an accidental immigrant with no money, broken English and a young family to support. Cuba's loss was America's gain. Here, in his own words, Sabates recounts the story of his early days growing up in a close-knit family in the tropical homeland that was stolen from him and his courageous and passionate pursuit of a new life in the United States. His remarkable journey began with gaining citizenship through an Act of Congress just days before the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Sabates quickly rose to the top of his field, gaining a reputation as one of the top eye surgeons in the word. Perplexed at first by the unwritten cultural rules of his adopted home, he set out to "infiltrate" Kansas City society and put the tools of capitalism to work advancing his vision of providing top-quality eye care for all, even the city's most indigent citizens. With humor, insight and passion, Dr. Sabates provides an intimate and engaging behind-the-scenes look at a stunning Kansas City success story and a shining embodiment of the American Dream.

From Cuba with a Vision: Losing My Homeland and Gaining the American Dream, a Story of Passionate Choices

Dr. Felix N. Sabates

On the eve of the 20th century, two sisters, each with a big heart and an indomitable will, set out to care for Kansas City s neediest children. They began with one little girl. Then they helped a couple more children, and then a dozen and then scores and hundreds of victims of abuse, birth defects, accidents and illness. With no help from public subsidies or insurers, they treated all comers with any hope of recovery but only as long as their patients were too poor to pay. That s how Alice Berry Graham and Katharine Berry Richardson started an institution that has grown into a part of the soul of Kansas City: Children s Mercy. For All Children Everywhere is a story of unending love and persistence on the part of two sisters, of the people who followed them and of the community that took their mission to heart. Today, 12 decades aft er its humble start as The Hospital of the Little People, Children s Mercy still brings healing to the poor, but also hope to all children and families of the city and the region. About the book s title: The founders of Children s Mercy declared their hospital to be for children regardless of their address, their religion or their pocketbooks. In the 1920s, when racial segregation ruled in public life, the leaders of the hospital believed they needed to address the health needs of non-white children, too. They found a way to work toward that goal, and declared the hospital For All Children Everywhere.

For All Children Everywhere: Children's Mercy Kansas City - 1897-2017

Thomas McCormally

This guidebook, the second edition, is an extensive amalgam of the architecture and history of Kansas City, Missouri. It is intended not merely to describe isolated structures of historic importance in Kansas City, but also to chronicle the flow of time and people by what they left behind. The book includes overviews of six Kansas City areas and then offers detailed photographs and descriptions of key residential and commercial structures found within each. The six areas include: Northland, Downtown-Westside-Northeast, Crossroads-Midtown-Westport, Country Club-Brookside-Waldo, East Side-Swope, and Martin City-Hickman Mills-Little Blue Valley. The book also includes detailed street maps showing the locations of each profiled structure. So the book is a handy, compact guide to keep in the glove box or carry on an architectural tour. To read its pages is to replay Kansas City's rich, deep history, block by block, street by street.

Kansas City: A Place in Time

The Historic Preservation Commission of Kansas City Mo.

Dr. Carol P. Getty began her professional career working as a mathematician in industry and in classrooms before embarking on a career in criminal justice. She received two appointments from Governor Bruce Babbitt to the Arizona Board of Pardons and Paroles, which she served for five years before being appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the United States Parole Commission. During her twelve years as a commissioner she also served under President George H.W. Bush, who named her chairman of the Commission, making her the first woman ever to serve in that capacity. After her retirement from federal service, she became an associate professor of criminal justice at Park University in Parkville, Missouri, and retired 14 years later as an Emeritus Professor of Criminal Justice. She was awarded a J. William Fulbright award and taught in Ukraine in 2008. She holds a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Wellesley College, a master’s of arts in criminal justice from Arizona State University, and a doctorate in public administration and political science from the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Peace in Justice: Reflections from a Career in the Criminal Justice System

Getty PhD, Carol P.

Professionals & Academics

"The Resurrection Window: Vision, Creation, Mission" details the incredible journey by a Kansas congregation to create a new church home built around and inspired by a 100-foot-wide, stained glass masterpiece. Featuring vivid narrative and hundreds of detailed, richly colored images, the book describes the making of the window from vision to design to its final installation as the focal point of the sanctuary of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas.

The Resurrection Window: Vision, Creation, Mission

The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection and Judson Studios

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