Kim Harp, Legislative Reference
State Library of Kansas
300 SW 10th Ave Rm 343-N
Topeka, KS 66612
785-296-2149
kimh@kslib.info

Topeka, KS- August 17, 2006

State Librarian Christie Brandau and Roy Bird, Director of the Kansas Center for the Book, today announced the 2006 Kansas Notable Book List. Fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books all populate the list which is considered to contain the best of the books published by Kansas authors or about Kansas in the preceding year.

"Each title—fiction or nonfiction, poetry, children’s or young adult books—speaks to the rich cultural heritage of Kansas," said Bird. "This list proves without a doubt that some of the greatest stories spring from the prairies of our state. It is an inaugural Notable Book List of which we can be proud."

The Kansas Notable Book List project of the Kansas Center for the Book (KCFB) at the State Library of Kansas is an annual selection of up to twenty titles of books by Kansans or about Kansas published in the previous year. A committee of the KCFB Board of Affiliates is responsible for identifying the titles. This year’s Kansas Notable Books selection committee included representatives from an academic library, a public library, a regional library system, booksellers, a publisher, a media representative, and a college children’s literature professor.

The Kansas Notable Book authors will be honored at the first Kansas Book Festival in Wichita on September 29 and 30. A special presentation will be made to each author at the Black, White, and READ All Over Ball, a gala during the Festival on the evening of September 29. For more information about the Kansas Book Festival, visit www.kansasbookfestival.ks.gov.

The alphabetical list by title of the 2006 Kansas Notable Books follow:

• Airball: My Life in Briefs, by L.K. Harkrader
• Capote in Kansas: A Drawn Novel, Ande Parks
• The Darkest Dawn: Lincoln, Booth, and the Great American Tragedy, by Thomas Goodrich
• Deputy Harvey and the Ant Cow Caper, by Brad Sneed
• The Great Blues, by Steve Semken
• A Hungry Heart: A Memoir, by Gordon Parks
• In the Small, Small Night, by Jane Kurtz
• The Kansas Guidebook for Explorers, by Marci Penner
• Maggie Rose and Sass, by Eunice Boeve
• The Moon Butter Route, by Max Yoho
• Oceans of Kansas: A Natural History of the Western Interior Sea, by Michael J. Everhart
• Ordinary Genius, by Thomas Fox Averill
• Wildflowers and Grasses of Kansas: A Field Guide, by Michael John Haddock
• The Youngest Brother: On a Kansas Wheat Farm During the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, by C. Hugh Snyder