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Movies and Music Make a Summer!
Johnson County Library is rocking out on Fridays this summer with live performances, interactive programs and musicals in the Parks, collaborating with several community groups to present a summer series of family friendly movies and concerts.
Grab a blanket, pack a picnic and get your music on with some of the greatest musical films from your childhood on Friday evenings throughout the summer! Local Music live concerts kick off some showings. Movie starts at dusk but join us earlier in the evening for the music and fun.
The remaining shows for Summer 2018 are:
Sept. 14, Mary Poppins
Electric Park
Festivities start at 5:30 pm
Cornerstone Park
Festivities start at 6 pm
More details about each night in our calendar of events.
In the event of inclement weather, please check here for cancellation notices.
This Library series is presented in partnership with Downtown Overland Park, City of Lenexa Parks & Recreation and City of Gardner Parks & Recreation. Support for these fun-filled experiences comes from the Friends of the Library and their volunteer core.
Summer Family Fun
Staycation? We have so many things for families to do this summer! Have fun with these local events and save yourself from hearing, "Are we there yet?"
- Tabletop Games
- Movies in the Park
- Local Music Live
- Exhibitions and Meet the Artist Events
- Water Safety
- Visit from Priscilla Howe
Family fun? Find it here!
National Public Service Recognition Week
This week is National Public Service Recognition Week. Here are just a few of our amazing employees and their reasons for devoting their time to a career in public service. We thank all of our staff, as well as everyone else who works in public service! See all the photos here »
May is National Pet Month
It's Throwback Thursday and May is National Pet month! The Kansas School for the Deaf introduced Johnson County to Buddy the deaf dog! Sure he wears a hat, eyeglasses and smokes a pipe - he's a working class dog!
See more local history at jocohistory.org or follow our hashtag on Twitter.
Our Favorite May Picture Books
Our 6 by 6: Ready to Read committee reads a whole lot of picture books. Here are there favorite recommended titles for children birth through 6 years old »
Hot Nonfiction Picks
Each month we look through the nonfiction items on order and make a list of the ones with buzz, and the ones that pique our interest. Check them out!
May New Releases
Hello and welcome! My name is Gregg. I’ll take a brief look at some of the well-reviewed titles that are published this month that we’ve either read or have heard great things about. We love bestsellers as much as you do, but those already have long holds lists. We love spotlighting books and authors that you might not be familiar with, or are brand new and deserve a bit of attention. Feel free to tell us about the under-the-radar titles that you’re excited about!
OUR KIND OF CRUELTY by Araminta Hall is a breath of fresh air in the psychological fiction genre. Most of these novels try to compete with each other to see who can pile up the most shocking reveal or the most unexpected twist. Hall has no interest in trying to outfox you - instead, she gets us deeply in the mind of a man who redefines the word “obsession.” Michael Hayes, a successful young London broker, loves to play twisted games with his girlfriend - until she breaks up and gets engaged with someone else. But to Michael’s twisted mind, they’re still together, and she is ‘testing’ him to see how far their game will go. Chilling, powerful, and with a lot to say about how society views women, Hall’s thriller laps the field by going darker and pulls absolutely no punches.
Be sure not to miss Tessa Fontaine’s astounding memoir, THE ELECTRIC WOMAN. A deeply personal account of a young woman who’s life was put on hold, caring for her mother who suffers a series of life-shattering strokes. But then, Fontaine is offered a chance to do what millions of children have wondered at some point in their lives - what would it be like to run away and join the circus? She joins the World of Wonders, one of the last of the old-school travelling carnivals and freak shows, and works her way up from selling tickets and enticing passersby to see the show to snake handling, fire eating, and finally as an escape artist. Fontaine writes with a strong sense of insight and wonder - this is a memoir about someone who faces their fears head-on and grows in unexpected ways because of it.
There might have been a time in your life where you’ve been a part of a larger group. It might have been a group of friends, siblings, or even coworkers. A group dynamic is a very real thing, and sometimes people together can absolutely overcome the sum of their parts. Aja Gabel excellently captures this feel in THE ENSEMBLE, a lush novel about four classical musicians who play in a quartet. They practice endless hours together, scraping by as young musicians playing weddings and receptions, hoping they can somehow make it big. They fall in love, break up, threaten to leave, then get back together again as they pursue their dreams. But no matter what, the pull of the group is always there, offering the possibility of connecting each individual talent into a larger whole. An excellent book club pick, Gabel’s characters are well-drawn and complex, and this novel that revolves around classical music is accessible to a broad audience, even if those piano lessons you took as a kid never quite stuck.
We’ll wrap up this month’s new releases with a look at THE LAST COWBOYS: A PIONEER FAMILY IN THE NEW WEST by New York Times sportswriter John Branch. This is an absorbing account of an American way of life that is trying to adapt and survive in a world that is looking in other directions. For generations, the Wright family have lived as cattle ranchers in southern Utah. Faced with the challenges of drought, land disputes, creeping urbanization, and the day-to-day stresses of ranching, the Wrights turn to the rodeo circuit to make money. Laced with heartache and triumph, Branch’s deep look at the fading - or to put it more accurately, the changing - American West is essential reading and might well become a classic. (Utah is only a few states away from Kansas, after all…)
What's New in Picture Books
Check out these recently ordered picture books for the latest in fun reading with your little ones!
This Week at the Library
Did you know each of our locations has book groups? We also offer more than 40 storytimes each week across all of our libraries. We have events for Makers from beginners through specialists, and if you're a job seeker or looking for some help with your tech questions, we've got your back, too. See you at the Library!
April's Hottest Fiction Pics from Readers Advisory Librarian Gregg
Hello and welcome to our new releases roundup for Fiction for the month of April, 2018! If this is your first time here, my name is Gregg and I’m a Readers’ Advisory librarian here at the Johnson County Library. I’ll take a brief look at some of the well-reviewed titles that are published this month that we’ve either read or have heard great things about. You’ll not find John Grisham, Michael Connelly, or Janet Evanovich on these lists. It’s not that we don’t like them – we do! – but those are authors who most folks have already heard of. We love spotlighting books and authors that you might not be familiar with, or are brand new and deserve a bit of attention. Feel free to tell us about the under-the-radar titles that you’re excited about.
Mixing together historical fiction and psychological thriller – two literary tastes that go well together - is Christine Mangan’s TANGERINE. Set mostly on 1950s Morocco, this twisty novel about jealousy and identity involves two friends from different social classes who knew each other from boarding school who meet again in Tangiers, Africa. Alice is in an unhappy marriage, new to the area, and terrified to leave her home, while the more carefree and mysterious Lucy suddenly appears and helps her discover the markets, cafes, and beautiful streets outside her home. But the friends share a dark secret from their past, and when Alice’s husband, John, suddenly disappears, Alice and Lucy’s dysfunctional relationship threatens to consume them all. Lushly written and with a strong sense of place – the description of Tangier’s twisty, languid streets and bustling markets will make you run to travel websites to look up the cost of flights to Morocco - this will please fans of Suzanne Rindell’s THE OTHER TYPIST and Erin Kelly’s THE POISON TREE.
Keeping with the historical fiction theme but going back a few years – well, okay, more like a few thousand years – is Madeline Miller’s glittering, brilliant CIRCE, destined to be a 2018 book club favorite. Based on the character in Homer’s Odyssey who’s mostly known for turning men into pigs, Miller transforms the story into a thoughtful exploration of feminism, isolationism, and above all, the ability to change. Born the daughter of the immortal race of Titans, Circe is very much a disappointment, not as beautiful as her mother or as powerful as her father, Helios, a sun god. Trying to find a place in this world on her own terms, she is exiled to an isolated island for the crime of discovering and learning a form of forbidden magic. When a Greek general from the Trojan War washes up on her shore, she must choose between the unchanging gods or the chaotic, squabbling mortals she has a fondness for. Personally, this one’s going right to the top of my best of the year list, and I don’t see it moving off that particular spot anytime soon. If you haven’t already, be sure to pick up Miller’s SONG OF ACHILLES, about the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus that altered the course of the Trojan War, which is equally as good as this one.
As a proud member of Generation X, I fondly remember going to the library as a young reader to browse the “Choose Your Own Adventure” novels, which were adventure or mystery stories that required you to make choices that altered the plot as you went forward. (We still have some in our collection if you’re curious!) Sadly, you don’t see many of those for adults. But Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris’ MY LADY’S CHOOSING mixes the ability to choose your own twists and turns of the story with a rollicking Regency-style historical romance. As the novel begins, you’re new to the courtship season, and you have an array of suitors in front of you. Do you choose a rugged Scottish Highlander? The dashing but scandalous rogue? Or the handsome but reluctant Lord? The authors fill the pages with a wonderful mix of wit, romance, and baudy humor, while keeping true to the classic romances that fans around the world love. This one’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser, and we won’t mind if you mark your page with a finger, skip ahead, and see what happens if you took another path - we’ve all done it!
The best novels about Big Important Topics will often take heavy, abstract concepts and boil them down to the personal level. Authors who write characters we relate to and can get behind provide a lens through which we can see those Big Important Topics and make them relatable and understandable. Jonathan Evison’s LAWN BOY introduces us to Mike Munoz, a young man who just got fired from an entry-level gig on a landscaping crew in an affluent Washington state suburb. Mike doesn’t have a lot of things going for him. He’s poor, lives on a reservation, his mom works double shifts to help keep the family afloat, and his brother has special needs. The deck is stacked against him, but the does have enthusiasm, a quick wit, and determination, and he tries and tries - and fails - to chip away at a small piece of the American Dream. One day, however, he catches the break that he’s long sought. Mike Munoz is a memorable character and this coming-of-age story is full of warm humor and big heart, and readers will quickly grow to love him and his observations on class, race, and culture as he looks from the outside in – and finally breaks through.