The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is an on-air, on-line community of readers exploring themes of interest to those who live and work on the High Plains.
It’s time for the 2024 Fall Read – Through the Eyes of a Child,featuring four selected books Alice in Wonderland by Sir John Tenniel, Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeii, The Blue Book of Nebo by Manon Steffan Ros; and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.Click here for the full book list including profiles of book leaders for the series. Or to invite others to the read click here to print a set of bookmarks complete with instructions for creating Radio Readers BookBytes .
Listen for Radio Readers BookBytes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered. _____________________________________________________________________
Become a Radio Reader! · Contribute a Radio Readers BookByte from the convenience of your home or office!Click here for basic directions. Worried about recording at home? Click here for the HPPR Radio Readers Tips for Recording, or, if you’re a techie and want a deeper dive into recording, click here .
· Weigh in on the themes or suggest books for upcoming seasons! Join our email group by contacting Kathleen Holt at kholt@hppr.org.
Have a favorite Radio Readers BookByte from the past? Download materials from previous HPPR Radio Readers Book Club seasons by scrolling back through the archive below; you can also search the site for content at the top of this page. _________________________________________________________
HPPR's Radio Readers Book Club is made possible in part by generous gifts from Lon Frahm (Colby, Kansas), Lynn Boitano (Edmond, Oklahoma, and the late Lynne Hewes (Cimarron, Kansas) — and, of course, by your generous support. To help this station further our regional features, join the mission with a pledge of support. Your membership to High Plains Public Radio makes this series possible. Click to give, and THANK YOU!
Well, Radio Readers, how about this fabulously curious Fall 2024 book series “Through the Eyes of a Child”? What a fascinating stretch of reading over the past several months, right? Alice in Wonderland, Everything Sad is Untrue, The Blue Book of Nebo, and Long Way Down: our reading journey this fall has immersed us in various settings, genres, and cultures.
My name is Deana Craighead and I am the Curator of Art at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. In the spring of 2024, the museum opened Dali’s Wonderland, an exhibition that features a limited-edition copy of Alice in Wonderland from the personal library of local philanthropist Sybil B. Harrington, illustrated by the artist Salvador Dali.
This is Nicole English for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club for the 2024 Fall Read.This is a discussion of the book, Long Way Down written in prose by Jason Reynolds, and for those who enjoy visuals with their prose, there is the graphic novel version, beautifully illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff.
This is Whitney Hodgin from the historic Cimarron Hotel for HPPR’S Radio Readers BookBytes.When I encounter people with strong personalities, I often consider what it would be like if the two of us were stuck in a broken-down elevator.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas with my last Radio Readers BookByte on Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.We are still on the elevator with Will and the ghosts of Buck and Dani.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda in Dodge City, Kansas, about the fourth and last book in our Fall 2024 series, “Through the Eyes of a Child.” Published in 2017, Long Way Down is the work of North American author Jason Reynolds, recipient of Newbury and Caldecott literary awards for his children’s and young adult books.
Hello again, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas.Last time I shared with you that in our book Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, the protagonist Will, a 15-year-old boy, is on his way to exact revenge on who he believes killed his brother Shawn.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas. I am a wife, a mother, and a priest. And I love to read. The genre of poetry has a special place in my heart. The absence of words, the unsaid words in between verses hold meaning in an almost soothing way.
Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher, STEAM facilitator, and coach in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
More of Seven Books Plus – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part IIIby Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
Four of Seven Books – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part II by Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
One day last week, I went to a coffee shop downtown to meet a friend. I had a hardback book tucked under my arm to give to the friend, a historian who shares my interest in the twisting and sometimes tortured arc of American democracy.
Hi everyone. This is Andrea Elise coming to you from Amarillo, Texas, to talk about the memoir, Call Me Debbie.If you have never heard the name “Deborah Voight,” you are probably in the majority.
MIA – Hi, my name is Mia Mendez and I’m 13 years old and I’m from Cimarron, Kansas. I recently read the book Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P Dobbs and her second book continuing on to that story The Other Side of the River.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Claire to talk about one of her favorite books.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Emma to talk about one of her favorite books. Good morning!
This is James Kenyon for the High Plains Radio Readers Book Summers Reading List. I am an active reader and writer. I authored Golden Rule Days. It is a history of the former high schools in all 105 counties in Kansas.
I am Tracy Million Simmons, owner of Meadowlark Press. As a small regional press specializing in stories from the Midwest, I’d like to take this moment to introduce you to a Meadowlark book. One of my all-time favorites is Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town, by Cheryl Unruh.
I’m Emilie Moll, editorial assistant for Meadowlark Press, for the High Plains Public Radio Summer Reading List. Our small, independent press specializes in stories from the Midwest, and today I'll be talking about a Meadowlark Book, I’ve Been Fighting This War Within Myself by Antonio Sanchez-Day.
It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of PJ Pronger of Amarillo. PJ was a Book Leader for the 2020 Spring Read – Radio Waves and a contributor of Radio Reader BokBytes. We appreciated his insight as well as his eloquence. The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is an on-air, on-line community of readers exploring themes of interest to those who live and work on the High Plains. We will miss PJ in that community and thank his family for sharing him with us.
The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is sad to learn of the passing of Mike Strong of Hays and Kansas City. For more than five years, Mike has been a steady source of Radio Readers BookBytes. We continue to air his thoughts as a tribute to our friend and as a thank you to Mike for sharing his insight, eloquence and broad talent. Radio Readers across the High Plains will long remember you, Mike. Rest well.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda and – believe it or not –it’s time to wrap up this most incredible of Spring Reads, “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
To end this set of readings with Plainwater by Anne Carson feels perfect. If not perfect, well, it still feels. Carson, once described by Bruce Hainley as “a philosopher of heartbreak” doesn’t just mix genres in her works but calls into question linguistic and cultural bedrocks that inform our reading of the continuity of human experiences.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.” I’ve included poems from famous poets as well as those from poets on the High Plains.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, thinking about Plainwater, a multilayered work from early in the career of Anne Carson, a writer pegged as a contender for a Nobel.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
Hello, Radio Readers! Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, here to reflect on Anne Carson’s Plainwater, an eclectic collection of essays and poetry – and just in time for April, National Poetry Month.
Hello HPPR listeners. I’m Andrea Elise in Amarillo, and I am excited to tell you about a poem called “A Song of Winter Weather.”Isn’t it fun to stumble upon an author who, though widely published, is new to you?
Through essay and poetry, Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers varied lecturettes. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running with Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.Chris McDougall was an almost accidental war correspondent, wandering after college, eventually landing in Madrid, Spain, teaching English for a bit, when he applied for a job with the Associated Press.
Welcome to HPPR Book Bytes. I’m Bob Seay. This is the first of three commentaries I’ll be doing about “Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America” by Christopher McDougall. The title says it all, or at least as much as you can say in twenty words and still have room to mention the author’s previous best-selling book on the cover.
I’m Shelley Armitage from Vega, Texas, sharing Radio Readers Book Bytes with you today. My new poetry book, A Habit of Landscape, celebrates the overlapping meanings of habit and habitat. Each share the root words “to dwell.”
Hello! I’m Cheryl Dunn in Lincoln, NE for HPPR’s Radio Readers Fall Book Club.The book Running with Sherman by Christopher McDougall was for the most part a very light-hearted book that was easy to sit and enjoy. I would caution you that Chapter 17 does go into some very dark material related to suicide and depression, but it provides you with an understanding that I hadn’t thought about.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running With Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.Sherman is a delight from page one, or page 40 or page anything, anywhere you land, whether you read from start to end or in spurts or you skim. If you love animals at all, Christopher McDougall’s always slightly bemused prose will endear you to the smart, funny, cantankerous Sherman.
Raylene Hinz-Penner here, retired English professor now living in North Newton, KS and talking about Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero by Christopher McDougall, former foreign correspondent, writer of the bestseller, Born to Run, collector of great human stories.
Yes, this story is about a donkey, but author Chris McDougall learns as much about perseverance as he does about animals in this work exploring family, culture and the connections often found between animal and humans.
This is Bailey from Garden City, Kansas reviewing Bewilderment by Richard Powers.This stylistically unique and prose-like novel takes the reader through the mind of a widowed astrobiologist who endeavors to find ways to help his brilliant and autistic son. Together they connect and share with each other through science fiction planets.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers.This is a book of overlapping metaphors and colliding worlds as order and science slide toward the dark hole of authoritarian chaos.
I’m Bob Seay and this is another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte. I’ve been reading Bewilderment, a novel by Richard Powers. On its surface, Bewilderment is a father-son story set in a framework of science fiction. But, like all good science fiction, it is the human themes that make the story work.
“What do we do with the art of monstrous men?” Author Claire Dederer made waves with her essay asking that question in the Paris Review in 2017. It has been a perennial problem in modern and contemporary art and has been especially uncomfortable since the #MeToo movement.
A True Kansas Story written by Joel Condray and illustrated by Mark Ward is about a person who found dinosaur bones. He was telling the story to his grandson and then at the end of the book, his grandson says there is no greater treasure than my grandpa.
Summer is the season for swimming pools and time at the lake. Regardless of whether you are a water person or not, if you are reader that enjoys an immersive novel – a book in which you can lose yourself- you must add THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese to your summer reading list.
The title of the book is Barefoot Dreams and the author is Alda P Dobbs. This book was so touching for us because it talked about immigration and in our family, we know what that word means.
Hello! This is Michelle Reid in Dodge City for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club Book Bytes. I’m the school librarian at Dodge City High School, and I will mostly talk about some of the best young adult books I’ve read. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that young adult books are only for teens.
It takes a special kind of person who plans a walk across the entirety of Afghanistan. Rarer still is the person that will plan such a trek at the turn of the 21st century, and then forge ahead just after the 9/11 attacks when Afghanistan was an unstable hotbed.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio. To kick off my summer reading, I chose my own award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is listed under the categories Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense. Which it is, of course, but what I love most about it is that the book is much more than that.
Our thirteenth book is a remarkable true tale that outlines the experiences of Malala Yousafzai who refused to be silenced by the Taliban when it took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan.
Hello, I’m Shelley Armitage bringing you a special Radio Readers BookByte in celebration of National Poetry Month. In honoring poetry this month and as a poet myself, I want to share this little piece I wrote. It’s called “What’s in a Title?” and refers to my forthcoming poetry collection entitled A Habit of Landscape.
The “Great War.” The “war to end all wars.” Is there such a thing? Without actually asking those questions Erich Remarque gives us an answer and that answer is no.
All Quiet on the Western Front was quite controversial after publication in January of 1928. If book sales, however, had been a sign of success All Quiet… would have been enshrined on the New York Times best seller list. In Germany, sales exceeded one million copies in the first year.
I have spent the better part of my life swimming in a world of tropes and schemes. In doing so, I have read and dissected a number of books, some fine examples of narrative prose and others simply wasted time. Eric Remarque’s excellent tome, All Quiet on the Western Front (AQWF), is one of my favorite anti-war books.
Book Twelve is considered by many the greatest war novel of all time. It is All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque’s masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of the award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club.My second selection was A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club. I’m excited to talk about A Gentleman in Moscow, one of my very favorite books.
The book begins on June 21, 1922. The Russian people are in the midst of the most bloodiest take over of their government and social structure in their nations history.
Book Eleven takes us to Russian with Amor Towles’ Gentleman in Moscow. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin.
Hello, Radio Readers. Jane Holwerda here from Dodge City, Kansas. It’s almost the end of our Fall 2022 read, Rural Life Revisited. And of course, we’re gearing up for our on-air program in mid-November to revisit the ways our perceptions of rural life may have been challenged by our conversations about Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg OH, Annie Proulx’s That Old Ace in the Hole, and Winfred Gallagher’s How the Post Office Created America.
As the United States expanded in the 1800’s, communication needs also expanded. Mail service was social media. People would write to tell relatives where they were and what they were doing. So, when Facebook’s subject line entices us with “Mamie Smith was in Hays …..” the line is far from new.
One of our most visible unnoticed most ubiquitous features of daily life was the result of the US Post Office solving a need and being sensitive to feelings. House numbers. Free city delivery by postal carriers to addresses. Much later, 1923, mailboxes on houses.
This is the first time for me to review a book for Book Byte. I am sitting at my kitchen table writing to you while my cat, Kitten, tries to take my pen away.
Hi, I'm Alan Erwin from Amarillo and I've been reading Winifred Gallagher's How the Post Office Created America.The American postal system is a marvel. Often maligned, it is a miracle of efficiency that every one of us takes for granted.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “How the Post Office Created America” by Winifred Gallagher.As I was working on reviewing Winifred Gallagher’s book, I was also shooting photos and video for a dance concert. One of the pieces was nostalgic about physical, paper mail. Specifically, about getting paper rather than texts or email.
My name is Gaye Tibbets and I am from Hutchinson, Kansas. I am a fiction lover, so I am as surprised as anyone that my summer read recommendation is non-fiction.Everyone should read Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family by Patrick Radden Keefe. It is a long book--550 pages, but it reads like a novel and is about the origins of the opioid crisis.
Howdy, this is Michael Grauer, native Kansan, long-time resident of the Texas Panhandle and the Llano Estacado, and currently McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture/Curator of Cowboy Collections and Western Art at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club’s Summer Reading List. For the record, there are too many trees here; they make me claustrophobic. I miss the High Plains.
Hello, this is Phillip Periman in Amarillo for the HPPR reader’s book club.Today I am recommending for summer reading a memoir Modern Instances: the Craft of Photography. A Memoir by Stephen Shore. Published by Mack, 2022.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is On The Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent (1901) by James Creelman.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is On The Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent (1901) by James Creelman.
Hello, I’m Dennis with a summer reading recommendation. I’m sitting on the beach of San Diego’s South Bay admiring Point Loma Peninsula across the bay on the Pacific side. The view is beautiful and peaceful, but I can’t keep away thoughts of the troubling and violent racial discord in our society.
Hello Booklovers, I’m Shelley Armitage in Los Cruces, New Mexico. I still manage my farm and return to my old farmhouse in Vega, Texas, a farming and ranching community where I grew up west of Amarillo in the Panhandle.
This is Leslie VonHolten for the HPPR Radio Readers’ Summer Reading List.My two summer reading suggestions are both memoirs about love and loss. Losing and loving special people in our lives and loving and losing a life-sustaining element of our land.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas. About 15 years ago, a fellow English major and friend told me about a book that changed his life.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of the award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club, and to share the backstory from my book.
Gilead (2004), Home (2008), Lila (2014), and Jack (2021) by Marilynne Robinson Recommended by Jane Holwerda, Dodge City, KS
Camp Fossil Eyes: Digging for the Origins of Words (2009) by Mark Abley and Kathryn Adams (Illustrator) Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
Why Poetry? (2017), by Matthew Zapruder Recommended by Dr. Phillip Periman, Amarillo, TX
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter (2019) by Erika L. Sánchez Recommended by Mary Scott, Dodge City, KS
Watch Your Tongue: What Our Everyday Sayings and Idioms Figuratively Mean (2018) by Mark Abley Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank Recommended by Conny Bogaard, Holcomb & Garden City, KS
Pennies from Hamburger Heaven by Marcy McKay (2015) Backstory by author Marcy McKay, Amarillo TX
Mountains Beyond Mountains, a Biography of Dr. Paul Farmer (2004) by Tracy Kidder Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
Lost & Found by Kathryn Schulz (2022) and Running Out: In Search of Water on the High Plains by Lucas Bessire (2021) Recommended by Leslie VonHolten, Humanities Kansas, Lawrence, KS
Walking the Llano: A Texas Memoir of Place by Shelley Armitage (2017) Remarks by author Shelley Armitage, Los Cruces, NM and Vega, TX
The Island of Missing Trees: A Novel by Elif Shafak (2021) Recommended by Shelley Armitage, Los Cruces, NM and Vega, TX
1493- Uncovering the New World Columbus Created (2011)by Charles Mann Recommended by Dennis Garcia, originally from Garden City, KS, now Chula Vista, CA
On The Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent (1901) by James Creelman Recommended by Mike Strong, KCK and Hays, KS
Modern Instances: the Craft of Photography. A Memoir by Stephen Shore (2022) Recommended by Dr. Phillip Periman, Amarillo, TX
PrairyErth: A Deep Map by William Least Heat Moon(1999) and My Flint Hills:Observations & Reminiscences from America's Last Tallgrass Prairie by Jim Hoy(2022) Recommended by Michael Grauer, native Kansan, long-time resident of the Texas Panhandle and the Llano Estacado, and currently Oklahoma City
Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family by Patrick Radden Keefe (2021) Recommended by Gaye Tibbets, Hutchinson, KS
Atlas of the Heart (2021) by Brené Brown Recommended by Holly Mercer, Dodge City Community College, Dodge City, KS
Children Whose Names We Do Not Know by Jenny Torres Sanchez (2021) Recommended by Mary Scott, Dodge City, KS
Amber & Clay by Laura Amy Schultz (2021) Recommended by Michelle Reid, Dodge City, KS
Japanese Fairy Tales compiled by Lafcadio Hearn (1948 & 1958) Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
For Want of Wings: A Bird with Teeth and a Dinosaur in the Family by Jill Hunting (2022) and Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (2022) Recommended by Jennifer Kassebaum, Council Grove, KS
Japanese Fairy Tales compiled by Lafcadio Hearn (1948 & 1958) Recommended by Andrea Elise, Amarillo, TX
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family’s Keepsake (2021) Recommended by Ralene Hinz-Penner, born & raised in SW Kansas, currently North Newton, KS
When Women Were Dragons by Kelly Barnhill (2022) Recommended by Sara Crow of Crow & Co Independent Book Seller, Hutchinson, KS
Neither Wolf nor Dog: On Forgotten Roads with an Indian Elder by Kent Nerburn (2002) Recommended by Dr. Phillip Periman, Amarillo, TX
Medicine Walk: A Novel by Richard Wagamese (2016) and Good Seeds: A Menominee Foods Memoir by Thomas Pecore Weso (2016) Recommended & reviewed by Thomas Pecore Weso, formerly of Lawrence, KS, now the San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Native American Stories for Kids: 12 Traditional Stories from Indigenous Tribes Across North America by Thomas Pecore Weso (2022) Recommended by Kathleen Holt, Cimarron, KS
It's time for the new season of books, and we expect this one will really DRAW you in! Get ready for some illustrated works by some award-winning authors and artists.
Satrapi’s graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution features powerful black-and-white comic strip images through which she tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to 14.
My background in wildlife biology and the history of science might make me an unlikely book leader for a graphic novel exploring growing up in Iran. I’m Kim Perez and currently, I serve on the faculty of the history department at Fort Hays State University.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City KS. Welcome to 2022 and our kick-off for High Plains Public Radio Readers Spring Read: Graphic Novels—Worth a Thousand Words. For the next few months, we’ll be talking about the stories communicated in the graphic novels of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis; Nora Krug’s Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home; John Lewis and Andrew Aydin’s March; and Yuval Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University for HPPR Book Bytes. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
This is Leslie VonHolten calling in from the High Plains of Kansas with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.Since its publication in 2003, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi has become one of the most highly regarded graphic novels and memoirs. Her stripped-bare but expressive illustrations drive the narrative just as much as her words.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words. If you love a compelling story and appreciate the power of the graphic novel to convey the nuances of a story, then these books are for you.
Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher and STEAM facilitator in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. These graphic novels are the author’s memoir of growing up a girl in revolutionary Iran. The photos in these two books, and the other book club picks, truly represent the theme Graphic Novels – Worth a Thousand Words.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR.There is little new under the sun. That includes graphic novels.In their present form graphic novels are book-length comic books. Most are drawn but some are combinations of photos and drawings.
Welcome to the 2021 Fall Read Rivers – Meandering Meaning. To open the series and introduce the first book Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River by Max McCoy, you’ll enjoy a presentation made by our book leader Hannes Zacharias, formerly of Dodge City and Hays, Kansas...
Hannes Zacharias is a Professor of Practice at KU's School of Public Affairs and Administration. His 35-year career in local government concluded as Johnson County Manager, Hannes has spent 45 years paddling rivers, including the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, 1,000 miles on the Missouri, and down the Arkansas River...
Rivers. Perhaps it is the fact that the river of my childhood is but a memory today -- the dry riverbed a place for noisy 3-wheelers -- that brings such fascination. Or it could be harsh lessons taught by our river’s dry, sandy bed juxtaposed with the memory of sand being stuffed into bags...
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.This book, written by Max in 2018, covers his travels on the upper Arkansas River and his 742-mile journey through Colorado and Kansas…
This is Leslie VonHolten traveling through the High Plains of Kansas, with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.I love the metaphor of rivers when we consider our life experiences, the way our days and our stories ebb and flow. Some spots are rough, too fast for us to steer the kayak. Others are languid, slow and easy. And like life, we never know what is around the bend.
I’m Denise Low reading poems about rivers as part of The Radio Readers Book Club’s 2021 Fall Read Rivers – Meandering Meaning. Rivers make me meander back to some of the first poetry I ever read, like this poem about the Nile by an unnamed Egyptian, translated by Ezra Pound,Nothing, nothing can keep me from my loveStanding on the other shore...
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.As Dan Flores says “it is a Blue Highway kind of book about a swipe of America…a riverline biography”.The book encourages me to reflect on my similar two solo kayak trips on the “Ark,” -- one in 1976, the other in 2018.
I've been asked to say a few words about my book, "Elevations." It was published in 2018 by the University Press of Kansas and the subtitle is, "A Personal Exploration of the Ark River." That just about says it all.
Hello, Radio Readers – I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas. It’s great to be back with our Fall 2021 Book Read: “Rivers and Meandering Meanings.”In his genre-defying book Elevations, Max McCoy, who directs the Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State, recounts his journey – by kayak, on foot, and by Jeep—following the Arkansas River from its headwaters in Leadville, Colorado, through southwestern and on to southeastern Kansas.
Well, Radio Readers, how about this fabulously curious Fall 2024 book series “Through the Eyes of a Child”? What a fascinating stretch of reading over the past several months, right? Alice in Wonderland, Everything Sad is Untrue, The Blue Book of Nebo, and Long Way Down: our reading journey this fall has immersed us in various settings, genres, and cultures.
My name is Deana Craighead and I am the Curator of Art at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. In the spring of 2024, the museum opened Dali’s Wonderland, an exhibition that features a limited-edition copy of Alice in Wonderland from the personal library of local philanthropist Sybil B. Harrington, illustrated by the artist Salvador Dali.
This is Nicole English for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club for the 2024 Fall Read.This is a discussion of the book, Long Way Down written in prose by Jason Reynolds, and for those who enjoy visuals with their prose, there is the graphic novel version, beautifully illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff.
This is Whitney Hodgin from the historic Cimarron Hotel for HPPR’S Radio Readers BookBytes.When I encounter people with strong personalities, I often consider what it would be like if the two of us were stuck in a broken-down elevator.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas with my last Radio Readers BookByte on Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.We are still on the elevator with Will and the ghosts of Buck and Dani.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda in Dodge City, Kansas, about the fourth and last book in our Fall 2024 series, “Through the Eyes of a Child.” Published in 2017, Long Way Down is the work of North American author Jason Reynolds, recipient of Newbury and Caldecott literary awards for his children’s and young adult books.
Hello again, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas.Last time I shared with you that in our book Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, the protagonist Will, a 15-year-old boy, is on his way to exact revenge on who he believes killed his brother Shawn.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas. I am a wife, a mother, and a priest. And I love to read. The genre of poetry has a special place in my heart. The absence of words, the unsaid words in between verses hold meaning in an almost soothing way.
Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher, STEAM facilitator, and coach in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
Well, Radio Readers, how about this fabulously curious Fall 2024 book series “Through the Eyes of a Child”? What a fascinating stretch of reading over the past several months, right? Alice in Wonderland, Everything Sad is Untrue, The Blue Book of Nebo, and Long Way Down: our reading journey this fall has immersed us in various settings, genres, and cultures.
My name is Deana Craighead and I am the Curator of Art at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. In the spring of 2024, the museum opened Dali’s Wonderland, an exhibition that features a limited-edition copy of Alice in Wonderland from the personal library of local philanthropist Sybil B. Harrington, illustrated by the artist Salvador Dali.
This is Nicole English for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club for the 2024 Fall Read.This is a discussion of the book, Long Way Down written in prose by Jason Reynolds, and for those who enjoy visuals with their prose, there is the graphic novel version, beautifully illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff.
This is Whitney Hodgin from the historic Cimarron Hotel for HPPR’S Radio Readers BookBytes.When I encounter people with strong personalities, I often consider what it would be like if the two of us were stuck in a broken-down elevator.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas with my last Radio Readers BookByte on Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.We are still on the elevator with Will and the ghosts of Buck and Dani.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda in Dodge City, Kansas, about the fourth and last book in our Fall 2024 series, “Through the Eyes of a Child.” Published in 2017, Long Way Down is the work of North American author Jason Reynolds, recipient of Newbury and Caldecott literary awards for his children’s and young adult books.
Hello again, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas.Last time I shared with you that in our book Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, the protagonist Will, a 15-year-old boy, is on his way to exact revenge on who he believes killed his brother Shawn.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas. I am a wife, a mother, and a priest. And I love to read. The genre of poetry has a special place in my heart. The absence of words, the unsaid words in between verses hold meaning in an almost soothing way.
Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher, STEAM facilitator, and coach in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
More of Seven Books Plus – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part IIIby Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
Four of Seven Books – A Reading List to Save Democracy – Part II by Kansas Reflector columnist Max McCoy. This is a list of seven books to save democracy, one reader at a time.
One day last week, I went to a coffee shop downtown to meet a friend. I had a hardback book tucked under my arm to give to the friend, a historian who shares my interest in the twisting and sometimes tortured arc of American democracy.
Hi everyone. This is Andrea Elise coming to you from Amarillo, Texas, to talk about the memoir, Call Me Debbie.If you have never heard the name “Deborah Voight,” you are probably in the majority.
MIA – Hi, my name is Mia Mendez and I’m 13 years old and I’m from Cimarron, Kansas. I recently read the book Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna by Alda P Dobbs and her second book continuing on to that story The Other Side of the River.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Claire to talk about one of her favorite books.
Hello, this is Michelle Reid for the HPPR Radio Readers Summer Book Club. Today I’m here with my granddaughter Emma to talk about one of her favorite books. Good morning!
This is James Kenyon for the High Plains Radio Readers Book Summers Reading List. I am an active reader and writer. I authored Golden Rule Days. It is a history of the former high schools in all 105 counties in Kansas.
I am Tracy Million Simmons, owner of Meadowlark Press. As a small regional press specializing in stories from the Midwest, I’d like to take this moment to introduce you to a Meadowlark book. One of my all-time favorites is Gravedigger’s Daughter: Vignettes from a Small Kansas Town, by Cheryl Unruh.
I’m Emilie Moll, editorial assistant for Meadowlark Press, for the High Plains Public Radio Summer Reading List. Our small, independent press specializes in stories from the Midwest, and today I'll be talking about a Meadowlark Book, I’ve Been Fighting This War Within Myself by Antonio Sanchez-Day.
It is with deep sadness that we share the passing of PJ Pronger of Amarillo. PJ was a Book Leader for the 2020 Spring Read – Radio Waves and a contributor of Radio Reader BokBytes. We appreciated his insight as well as his eloquence. The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is an on-air, on-line community of readers exploring themes of interest to those who live and work on the High Plains. We will miss PJ in that community and thank his family for sharing him with us.
The HPPR Radio Readers Book Club is sad to learn of the passing of Mike Strong of Hays and Kansas City. For more than five years, Mike has been a steady source of Radio Readers BookBytes. We continue to air his thoughts as a tribute to our friend and as a thank you to Mike for sharing his insight, eloquence and broad talent. Radio Readers across the High Plains will long remember you, Mike. Rest well.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda and – believe it or not –it’s time to wrap up this most incredible of Spring Reads, “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
To end this set of readings with Plainwater by Anne Carson feels perfect. If not perfect, well, it still feels. Carson, once described by Bruce Hainley as “a philosopher of heartbreak” doesn’t just mix genres in her works but calls into question linguistic and cultural bedrocks that inform our reading of the continuity of human experiences.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.” I’ve included poems from famous poets as well as those from poets on the High Plains.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, thinking about Plainwater, a multilayered work from early in the career of Anne Carson, a writer pegged as a contender for a Nobel.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club.Today I’ll be sharing some poetry, all tangentially connected to our spring theme of “Water, Water, Neverwhere.”
Hello, Radio Readers! Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas, here to reflect on Anne Carson’s Plainwater, an eclectic collection of essays and poetry – and just in time for April, National Poetry Month.
Hello HPPR listeners. I’m Andrea Elise in Amarillo, and I am excited to tell you about a poem called “A Song of Winter Weather.”Isn’t it fun to stumble upon an author who, though widely published, is new to you?
Through essay and poetry, Carson envisions a present-day interview with a seventh-century BC poet, and offers varied lecturettes. She imagines the muse of a fifteenth-century painter attending a phenomenology conference in Italy.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running with Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.Chris McDougall was an almost accidental war correspondent, wandering after college, eventually landing in Madrid, Spain, teaching English for a bit, when he applied for a job with the Associated Press.
Welcome to HPPR Book Bytes. I’m Bob Seay. This is the first of three commentaries I’ll be doing about “Running with Sherman: How a Rescue Donkey Inspired a Rag-tag Gang of Runners to Enter the Craziest Race in America” by Christopher McDougall. The title says it all, or at least as much as you can say in twenty words and still have room to mention the author’s previous best-selling book on the cover.
I’m Shelley Armitage from Vega, Texas, sharing Radio Readers Book Bytes with you today. My new poetry book, A Habit of Landscape, celebrates the overlapping meanings of habit and habitat. Each share the root words “to dwell.”
Hello! I’m Cheryl Dunn in Lincoln, NE for HPPR’s Radio Readers Fall Book Club.The book Running with Sherman by Christopher McDougall was for the most part a very light-hearted book that was easy to sit and enjoy. I would caution you that Chapter 17 does go into some very dark material related to suicide and depression, but it provides you with an understanding that I hadn’t thought about.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Running With Sherman” by Christopher McDougall.Sherman is a delight from page one, or page 40 or page anything, anywhere you land, whether you read from start to end or in spurts or you skim. If you love animals at all, Christopher McDougall’s always slightly bemused prose will endear you to the smart, funny, cantankerous Sherman.
Raylene Hinz-Penner here, retired English professor now living in North Newton, KS and talking about Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero by Christopher McDougall, former foreign correspondent, writer of the bestseller, Born to Run, collector of great human stories.
Yes, this story is about a donkey, but author Chris McDougall learns as much about perseverance as he does about animals in this work exploring family, culture and the connections often found between animal and humans.
This is Bailey from Garden City, Kansas reviewing Bewilderment by Richard Powers.This stylistically unique and prose-like novel takes the reader through the mind of a widowed astrobiologist who endeavors to find ways to help his brilliant and autistic son. Together they connect and share with each other through science fiction planets.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “Bewilderment” by Richard Powers.This is a book of overlapping metaphors and colliding worlds as order and science slide toward the dark hole of authoritarian chaos.
I’m Bob Seay and this is another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte. I’ve been reading Bewilderment, a novel by Richard Powers. On its surface, Bewilderment is a father-son story set in a framework of science fiction. But, like all good science fiction, it is the human themes that make the story work.
“What do we do with the art of monstrous men?” Author Claire Dederer made waves with her essay asking that question in the Paris Review in 2017. It has been a perennial problem in modern and contemporary art and has been especially uncomfortable since the #MeToo movement.
A True Kansas Story written by Joel Condray and illustrated by Mark Ward is about a person who found dinosaur bones. He was telling the story to his grandson and then at the end of the book, his grandson says there is no greater treasure than my grandpa.
Hi there. This is reader Maureen Hearty from Joes, in Colorado’s northeastern plains, for the HPPR radio readers book club summer reading list.
Summer is the season for swimming pools and time at the lake. Regardless of whether you are a water person or not, if you are reader that enjoys an immersive novel – a book in which you can lose yourself- you must add THE COVENANT OF WATER by Abraham Verghese to your summer reading list.
The title of the book is Barefoot Dreams and the author is Alda P Dobbs. This book was so touching for us because it talked about immigration and in our family, we know what that word means.
Hello! This is Michelle Reid in Dodge City for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club Book Bytes. I’m the school librarian at Dodge City High School, and I will mostly talk about some of the best young adult books I’ve read. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that young adult books are only for teens.
It takes a special kind of person who plans a walk across the entirety of Afghanistan. Rarer still is the person that will plan such a trek at the turn of the 21st century, and then forge ahead just after the 9/11 attacks when Afghanistan was an unstable hotbed.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio. To kick off my summer reading, I chose my own award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven.
The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman is listed under the categories Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense. Which it is, of course, but what I love most about it is that the book is much more than that.
Hello. My name is Cheryl Berzanskis and I’m from Amarillo. It’s summertime, y’all, and the season for a no-excuses visit to the great outdoors.
Our thirteenth book is a remarkable true tale that outlines the experiences of Malala Yousafzai who refused to be silenced by the Taliban when it took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan.
Hello, I’m Shelley Armitage bringing you a special Radio Readers BookByte in celebration of National Poetry Month. In honoring poetry this month and as a poet myself, I want to share this little piece I wrote. It’s called “What’s in a Title?” and refers to my forthcoming poetry collection entitled A Habit of Landscape.
The “Great War.” The “war to end all wars.” Is there such a thing? Without actually asking those questions Erich Remarque gives us an answer and that answer is no.
All Quiet on the Western Front was quite controversial after publication in January of 1928. If book sales, however, had been a sign of success All Quiet… would have been enshrined on the New York Times best seller list. In Germany, sales exceeded one million copies in the first year.
I have spent the better part of my life swimming in a world of tropes and schemes. In doing so, I have read and dissected a number of books, some fine examples of narrative prose and others simply wasted time. Eric Remarque’s excellent tome, All Quiet on the Western Front (AQWF), is one of my favorite anti-war books.
Book Twelve is considered by many the greatest war novel of all time. It is All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque’s masterpiece of the German experience during World War I.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of the award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club.My second selection was A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles.
I’m Pat Tyrer from Canyon, Texas for the High-Plains-Public-Radio-Readers Book Club. I’m excited to talk about A Gentleman in Moscow, one of my very favorite books.
The book begins on June 21, 1922. The Russian people are in the midst of the most bloodiest take over of their government and social structure in their nations history.
Book Eleven takes us to Russian with Amor Towles’ Gentleman in Moscow. In 1922, Count Alexander Rostov is deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, and is sentenced to house arrest in the Metropol, a grand hotel across the street from the Kremlin.
In case you missed it, hear the full audio from the Fall 2022 On-Air Live Book Discussion on the link at the top of this page!
The 2022 Fall Read - Rural Life Revisited culminated in a lively discussion Sunday evening, November 13, 2022. Thanks to all who participated!
Hello, Radio Readers. Jane Holwerda here from Dodge City, Kansas. It’s almost the end of our Fall 2022 read, Rural Life Revisited. And of course, we’re gearing up for our on-air program in mid-November to revisit the ways our perceptions of rural life may have been challenged by our conversations about Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg OH, Annie Proulx’s That Old Ace in the Hole, and Winfred Gallagher’s How the Post Office Created America.
As the United States expanded in the 1800’s, communication needs also expanded. Mail service was social media. People would write to tell relatives where they were and what they were doing. So, when Facebook’s subject line entices us with “Mamie Smith was in Hays …..” the line is far from new.
One of our most visible unnoticed most ubiquitous features of daily life was the result of the US Post Office solving a need and being sensitive to feelings. House numbers. Free city delivery by postal carriers to addresses. Much later, 1923, mailboxes on houses.
This is the first time for me to review a book for Book Byte. I am sitting at my kitchen table writing to you while my cat, Kitten, tries to take my pen away.
Hi, I'm Alan Erwin from Amarillo and I've been reading Winifred Gallagher's How the Post Office Created America.The American postal system is a marvel. Often maligned, it is a miracle of efficiency that every one of us takes for granted.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is “How the Post Office Created America” by Winifred Gallagher.As I was working on reviewing Winifred Gallagher’s book, I was also shooting photos and video for a dance concert. One of the pieces was nostalgic about physical, paper mail. Specifically, about getting paper rather than texts or email.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. e book is “How the Post Office Created America” by Winifred Gallagher.
My name is Gaye Tibbets and I am from Hutchinson, Kansas. I am a fiction lover, so I am as surprised as anyone that my summer read recommendation is non-fiction.Everyone should read Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Family by Patrick Radden Keefe. It is a long book--550 pages, but it reads like a novel and is about the origins of the opioid crisis.
Howdy, this is Michael Grauer, native Kansan, long-time resident of the Texas Panhandle and the Llano Estacado, and currently McCasland Chair of Cowboy Culture/Curator of Cowboy Collections and Western Art at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, for HPPR’s Radio Readers Book Club’s Summer Reading List. For the record, there are too many trees here; they make me claustrophobic. I miss the High Plains.
Hello, this is Phillip Periman in Amarillo for the HPPR reader’s book club.Today I am recommending for summer reading a memoir Modern Instances: the Craft of Photography. A Memoir by Stephen Shore. Published by Mack, 2022.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is On The Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent (1901) by James Creelman.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR. The book is On The Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent (1901) by James Creelman.
Hello, I’m Dennis with a summer reading recommendation. I’m sitting on the beach of San Diego’s South Bay admiring Point Loma Peninsula across the bay on the Pacific side. The view is beautiful and peaceful, but I can’t keep away thoughts of the troubling and violent racial discord in our society.
Hello Booklovers, I’m Shelley Armitage in Los Cruces, New Mexico. I still manage my farm and return to my old farmhouse in Vega, Texas, a farming and ranching community where I grew up west of Amarillo in the Panhandle.
This is Leslie VonHolten for the HPPR Radio Readers’ Summer Reading List.My two summer reading suggestions are both memoirs about love and loss. Losing and loving special people in our lives and loving and losing a life-sustaining element of our land.
Hello, my name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas. About 15 years ago, a fellow English major and friend told me about a book that changed his life.
Hi, I’m Marcy McKay from Amarillo, author of the award-winning novel, Pennies from Burger Heaven. I’m excited to be a Radio Reader for High Plains Public Radio’s Book Club, and to share the backstory from my book.
It's time for the new season of books, and we expect this one will really DRAW you in! Get ready for some illustrated works by some award-winning authors and artists.
Satrapi’s graphic memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution features powerful black-and-white comic strip images through which she tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to 14.
My background in wildlife biology and the history of science might make me an unlikely book leader for a graphic novel exploring growing up in Iran. I’m Kim Perez and currently, I serve on the faculty of the history department at Fort Hays State University.
Hello, Radio Readers! I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City KS. Welcome to 2022 and our kick-off for High Plains Public Radio Readers Spring Read: Graphic Novels—Worth a Thousand Words. For the next few months, we’ll be talking about the stories communicated in the graphic novels of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis; Nora Krug’s Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home; John Lewis and Andrew Aydin’s March; and Yuval Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University for HPPR Book Bytes. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.
My name is Andrea Elise and I live in Amarillo, Texas. I’m here to talk about Persepolis, a two-part autobiographical narrative by Marjane Satrapi.
This is Leslie VonHolten calling in from the High Plains of Kansas with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.Since its publication in 2003, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi has become one of the most highly regarded graphic novels and memoirs. Her stripped-bare but expressive illustrations drive the narrative just as much as her words.
Hello, Radio Readers; this is Kim Perez, and I am coming to you from the history department at Fort Hays State University. The books I will be discussing, the two-book series Persepolis and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi, are the first in our Spring 2022 reader’s theme: Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words. If you love a compelling story and appreciate the power of the graphic novel to convey the nuances of a story, then these books are for you.
Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher and STEAM facilitator in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi. These graphic novels are the author’s memoir of growing up a girl in revolutionary Iran. The photos in these two books, and the other book club picks, truly represent the theme Graphic Novels – Worth a Thousand Words.
This is Mike Strong, in Hays, for HPPR.There is little new under the sun. That includes graphic novels.In their present form graphic novels are book-length comic books. Most are drawn but some are combinations of photos and drawings.
Welcome to the 2021 Fall Read Rivers – Meandering Meaning. To open the series and introduce the first book Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River by Max McCoy, you’ll enjoy a presentation made by our book leader Hannes Zacharias, formerly of Dodge City and Hays, Kansas...
Hannes Zacharias is a Professor of Practice at KU's School of Public Affairs and Administration. His 35-year career in local government concluded as Johnson County Manager, Hannes has spent 45 years paddling rivers, including the Colorado through the Grand Canyon, 1,000 miles on the Missouri, and down the Arkansas River...
Rivers. Perhaps it is the fact that the river of my childhood is but a memory today -- the dry riverbed a place for noisy 3-wheelers -- that brings such fascination. Or it could be harsh lessons taught by our river’s dry, sandy bed juxtaposed with the memory of sand being stuffed into bags...
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.This book, written by Max in 2018, covers his travels on the upper Arkansas River and his 742-mile journey through Colorado and Kansas…
This is Leslie VonHolten traveling through the High Plains of Kansas, with another HPPR Radio Readers Book Byte.I love the metaphor of rivers when we consider our life experiences, the way our days and our stories ebb and flow. Some spots are rough, too fast for us to steer the kayak. Others are languid, slow and easy. And like life, we never know what is around the bend.
I’m Denise Low reading poems about rivers as part of The Radio Readers Book Club’s 2021 Fall Read Rivers – Meandering Meaning. Rivers make me meander back to some of the first poetry I ever read, like this poem about the Nile by an unnamed Egyptian, translated by Ezra Pound,Nothing, nothing can keep me from my loveStanding on the other shore...
I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.As Dan Flores says “it is a Blue Highway kind of book about a swipe of America…a riverline biography”.The book encourages me to reflect on my similar two solo kayak trips on the “Ark,” -- one in 1976, the other in 2018.
I've been asked to say a few words about my book, "Elevations." It was published in 2018 by the University Press of Kansas and the subtitle is, "A Personal Exploration of the Ark River." That just about says it all.
Hello, Radio Readers – I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas. It’s great to be back with our Fall 2021 Book Read: “Rivers and Meandering Meanings.”In his genre-defying book Elevations, Max McCoy, who directs the Center for Great Plains Studies at Emporia State, recounts his journey – by kayak, on foot, and by Jeep—following the Arkansas River from its headwaters in Leadville, Colorado, through southwestern and on to southeastern Kansas.
Well, Radio Readers, how about this fabulously curious Fall 2024 book series “Through the Eyes of a Child”? What a fascinating stretch of reading over the past several months, right? Alice in Wonderland, Everything Sad is Untrue, The Blue Book of Nebo, and Long Way Down: our reading journey this fall has immersed us in various settings, genres, and cultures.
My name is Deana Craighead and I am the Curator of Art at Panhandle Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas. In the spring of 2024, the museum opened Dali’s Wonderland, an exhibition that features a limited-edition copy of Alice in Wonderland from the personal library of local philanthropist Sybil B. Harrington, illustrated by the artist Salvador Dali.
This is Nicole English for the HPPR Radio Readers Book Club for the 2024 Fall Read.This is a discussion of the book, Long Way Down written in prose by Jason Reynolds, and for those who enjoy visuals with their prose, there is the graphic novel version, beautifully illustrated by Danica Novgorodoff.
This is Whitney Hodgin from the historic Cimarron Hotel for HPPR’S Radio Readers BookBytes.When I encounter people with strong personalities, I often consider what it would be like if the two of us were stuck in a broken-down elevator.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas with my last Radio Readers BookByte on Jason Reynold’s Long Way Down.We are still on the elevator with Will and the ghosts of Buck and Dani.
Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda in Dodge City, Kansas, about the fourth and last book in our Fall 2024 series, “Through the Eyes of a Child.” Published in 2017, Long Way Down is the work of North American author Jason Reynolds, recipient of Newbury and Caldecott literary awards for his children’s and young adult books.
Hello again, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas.Last time I shared with you that in our book Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, the protagonist Will, a 15-year-old boy, is on his way to exact revenge on who he believes killed his brother Shawn.
Hello everybody, this is Miriam Scott from Amarillo Texas. I am a wife, a mother, and a priest. And I love to read. The genre of poetry has a special place in my heart. The absence of words, the unsaid words in between verses hold meaning in an almost soothing way.
Thank you for joining us on the High Plains Public Radio Station. My name is Jessica Sadler and I am a Science Teacher, STEAM facilitator, and coach in Olathe, Kansas. I am here with the other book leaders to discuss Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds.
