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Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans
February is National African American History Month, and fittingly, Kadir Nelson's Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans, recently won the American Library Association's 2012...
View ArticleTitanic Sinks!
ISBN: 9780670012435 As a young child, my older sister taught me a version of a song about the doomed ship Titanic that was so jolly in tone, it belied the sober meaning of the lyrics. I merrily...
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Books Plus for July
Although summer officially began just last week, it seems as though it's been hot and dry forever. As we water our gardens and lawns, it's hard to envision a major flood. But join us for a discussion...
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Family History Month is coming!
The Indiana Room is gearing up early for National Family History Month in October.Be sure to mark your calendars now for these programs:Dating Old Family Photos Image from the Smithville News Digital...
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Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption
Unbroken tells the amazing true story of Louie Zamperini, a rascally little boy who grows up in Southern California to Italian immigrant parents. As a child, Louie is constantly in trouble and has a...
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Civil War Fiction
This summer will be the 150 year anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the deadliest periods of the Civil War. The three days saw record causalities and is also considered one of the turning...
View ArticleAmerica's First Tornado Scientists and What They Taught Us
ISBN: 9780307378521 I was afraid this would be another macho book about reckless men roaming the plains chasing tornadoes during storm season. Instead it turned out to be a wonderful compendium of...
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Detroit: An American Autopsy
Leading the news today is the announcement that Detroit filed for bankruptcy. They aren’t the first municipality to file, but they are the largest. What this means for residents, city workers, retirees...
View ArticleJane Has Her Say
ISBN: 9780307958341 I love this new age of biography where not only famous people’s lives are examined but also everyman’s or in this case everywoman’s. Of course, Jane Franklin’s life would have...
View ArticleMonuments Men
ISBN: 043396424883 It’s not often that a World War II film comes my way that stirs my soul. It’s even rarer that what stirs my soul is not the personal story of an individual or a small group of...
View ArticleOrphan Train
ISBN: 9780061950728 I had a personal connection to this novel because my mom was raised as an orphan in Chicago. Luckily, she never had to experience adoptions or sharing foster homes with unloving...
View ArticleAtomic Café
ISBN: 767685949634 In the early 60’s I remember going through atomic bomb drills in school. We were dutifully herded by our teachers down to the depths of Roger’s Elementary school here in...
View ArticleHissing Cousins
ISBN: 9780385536011 This double biography of two famous first cousins, both belonging to the famous Roosevelt clan, brings the early 20th century to life in both Washington DC and New York and gives...
View ArticleDead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
ISBN: 9780307408860 Are you looking for a big, absorbing book of nonfiction to fill these long winter nights? One to give as a present to a friend or relative who loves nonfiction? Want to get lost...
View ArticleJacob Lawrence: The Migration Series
ISBN: 9780870709647 Although migration is obviously a hot topic in the news these days, this beautiful MoMA art book is about an earlier internal movement that began during World War 1 when many...
View ArticleGlory
ISBN: 043396041837 Civil War Colonel Robert Gould Shaw of the Union Army is not a man most of us would think of as having an important role in the history of African Americans in the United States,...
View ArticleLittle Big Man
ISBN: 097363772149 First Line: “I am, beyond a doubt, the last of the old-timers. My name is Jack Crabb. And I am the sole white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, uh, uh, popularly known as...
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