Summer Reading Is No Mystery

Summer Reading is here again!

Library users and librarians alike look forward to our Summer Reading Club every year. And why not? It's jam-packed with programs, activities, events, prizes, and of course, reading!

We have three Summer Reading programs this year:















"Get a Clue" is our Preschool-Fifth Grade Summer Reading Club.















"You Never Know" is our Summer Reading Club for Teens, Sixth-Grade and up.














"Report Not Required" is our Summer Reading Program for educators and librarians (because we deserve some Summer Reading fun, too, right?).

All three programs begin Tuesday, May 29. We've got more information (and extra goodies) on our Summer Reading Club pages, so check them out and come join in the fun!

A Festival for Readers

The Kansas City Literary Festival is tomorrow! How exciting! Meteorologist Gary Lezak will open the festival at 9:50 a.m., and then from 10:oo a.m. to 6:50 p.m., Kansas City will host a nonstop cavalcade of writers. There will be more authors than you can shake a stick at! (Please don't actually shake a stick at any authors. It's impolite, and it makes them uncomfortable.) There will be novelists, poets, nonfiction writers--authors for all types and all ages of readers! There will also be exhibitors, food, and representatives of the Johnson County Library.

The Literary Festival will be at the Country Club Plaza. Come on down! The more, the merrier! Let's make this an annual event, and show the world how much Kansas City loves books and reading!

The Big Brush-Off

One of the great things about living in Kansas City is the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. It has great collections, great staff, and it offers great programs. When I was a kid, I took a drawing class at the museum, and it was in that class that I developed a love of the Nelson's Asian collection, particularly the brush paintings.

Flash forward some years (I'm not saying how many) to this past Sunday, when the museum, in partnership with the Library and The Big Read program, offered a Chinese Brush Painting Workshop. Participants got a tour of the Chinese ink painting collection, a demonstration of brush painting in action, and a chance to create their own landscape paintings using bamboo brushes.

Kansas City continues to be a great place for art and culture, and the Johnson County Library is proud to be a part of this tradition.

Happy Birthday, Alice!

Today is the birthday of Alice Liddell, the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, those classics of literature written by the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson and published under the name Lewis Carroll.

The books that Alice inspired have become cultural icons, and references to them can be found in music, movies, television shows, comics, video games, and more. They're also fun books to read on their own accord.

So, Happy Birthday, Alice!

You can learn more about Alice Liddell from this Web page, and you can page through an electronic version of the original manuscript for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at the Web site for the British Library. Of course, you can always check out the books and other versions of the stories at the Johnson County Library!