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Meet the Author & Illustrator: Sharice Davids with Nancy K Mays and Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley

Register for this program online or call 816.260.4600.

Kansas 3rd district congresswoman Sharice Davids loves encouraging kids to use their voice and lift up their communities. Join us for a reading and discussion with Rep. Davids, co-author Nancy Mays, and illustrator Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley as they talk about the art and story in Sharice's Big Voice. Their book tells the triumphant story of Davids, one of the first two Native American women ever elected to Congress and the first openly LGBTQ+ congressperson to represent Kansas in Washington.

This program will be hosted using the meeting software Zoom. A Johnson County Library staff member will contact registrants via the email you registered with to provide more information about the program and instructions on how to access the Zoom meetings. You do not need to download any software or create an account.

In connection with our author event with Congresswoman Sharice Davids and her debut children’s book, Sharice’s Big Voice, kids are invited to join our youth writing and art contest, Reaching for Your Dreams. In Sharice’s Big Voice, Sharice dreamed of making a difference in this world by pursuing politics and now represents Kansas as a Congresswoman. What are your dreams? How will you accomplish them? What stands in your way? How will you stay motivated and what happens if you fail? Any or all of these questions and more can be explored in your submission. Short stories, essays, poems and art can be submitted Sept. 1-14.. Winners will received a copy of Sharice’s Big Voice signed by the authors and illustrator. Open to ages 10 and under.

The Creation of Leawood City Park: An Interview with Jean Wise

When you’re a kid, summer means swimming, and when I was growing up in Leawood I did most of my swimming at the Leawood City Park’s pool. I also spent a lot of time on the playground where Lee Boulevard and I-435 meet. Both the pool and playground were thoroughly remodeled in 1997, when I was eleven, and the original playground has long lingered in my memory as a lost paradise – a Shangri-Leawood, if you will. I liked the remodel quite a bit, but once I became an adult I found that every time summer rolled around I started thinking back to the city park as I originally knew it.

I remembered sand pits separated by concrete slabs connecting them that had tunnels big enough to crawl through. I remembered a small, stepped hill-sized structure with evergreen bushes on it. One could ... Read the full article on the jocohistory blog.»

Walk and Read – Daily, All Week

“Take a walk and read a book.” Not normally sound advice, but that is exactly what Johnson County Library is suggesting families do this week at Quail Creek Park, (7024 Grandview St, Merriam, KS) and at various locations throughout Johnson County. Walk and Read creates a family reading experience in the great outdoors! Families who participate will read two stories posted around the path, one going each direction. When you finish one story, you can flip around to the other side of the sign and begin the next story, which will lead you back around the path. 

The Great Courses – Daily, Anytime

 Stream the best of The Great Courses through Kanopy. Hundreds of topics to choose from. Each course provides a series of in-depth video lessons taught by an expert professor. Enjoy unlimited viewing of this series!

Universal Class – Daily, Anytime

Universal Class offers convenient online classes, lessons with assignments and exams, self-paced deadlines and real human instructors. Continuing Education Units are available. Look through the course catalog to see all offerings and enroll in a class. With over 500 online classes, you are sure to find something to pique your interest.

Udemy – Daily, Anytime

Gale presents: Udemy, offering thousands of on-demand video courses taught by world-class instructors. Courses cover the freshest and most relevant content on leadership and management, coding, design, marketing, IT operations, data science, project management, human resources, sales, accounting, finance and productivity.

Courses include exercise files, searchable transcripts and multilingual captioning. Powered by the Udemy for Business collection, plus an International collection featuring courses led by native speakers in a variety of languages.

And much more …

Someone once said "The difference between try and triumph is a little umph." That's good advice for all the kids returning to school.

Check out these class photos from over the years. Can you guess the year for each? The answers can be found at jocohistory.org.

Remember, jocohistory.org is the place to time travel through local history. Be sure to follow our hashtag on Twitter!

Happy Throwback Thursday! Some call it the best day of the week.