2020 Kansas Notable Books 15 YEARS of 15 Books

The Kansas Notable Books List is the annual recognition of 15 outstanding titles either written by Kansans or about a Kansas related topic.

WHAT COLOR IS NIGHT? Written & Illustrated by Grant Snider Published by Chronicle Books (Chronicle Kids)

Look closer to explore the wonders—and colors—of nighttime. For night is not just black and white. Ending in colors yet unseen, and a night of sweet dreams, this lilting lullaby is sure to comfort those drifting off to sleep.

Kansas Connection: Grant Snider is an orthodontist by day and an author and artist of comics and picture books by night. He lives in Wichita Kansas.

FOLLOW ME DOWN TO NICODEMUS TOWN Written by A. LaFaye & Illustrated by Nicole Tadgell Published by Albert Whitman & Company

When Dede sees a notice offering land to black people in Kansas, her family decides to give up their life of sharecropping to become homesteading pioneers in the Midwest. Inspired by the true story of Nicodemus, Kansas, a town founded in the late 1870s by Exodusters—former slaves leaving the Jim Crow South in search of a new beginning—this fictional story follows Dede and her parents as they set out to stake and secure a claim, finally allowing them to have a home to call their own.

Kansas Connection: The story takes place in Nicodemus, KS.

JOURNEY TO A PROMISED LAND: A Story of the Exodusters Written by Allison Lassieur Published by Jolly Fish Press

Hattie Jacobs has a secret dream: to go to school to become a teacher. But her parents were formerly enslaved and are struggling to survive in Nashville, Tennessee, after Reconstruction. When the Jacobs family joins the Great Exodus of 1879 to Kansas, their journey in search of a better life is filled with danger and hardship. Will they make it to the Mississippi River unharmed? What will be waiting for them in Kansas, and will it live up to their dreams?

Kansas Connection: Parts of the story take place in Kansas.

CRUMBLED!: THE MISADVENTURES OF NOBBIN SWILL Written by Lisa Harkrader Published by Simon & Schuster (Yellow Jacket)

For Nobbin Swill, life is no fairy tale. His family has been the king's royal dung farmers for generations. It's a stinky job and someone has to do it, but Nobbin doesn't want to spend his whole life as a dung farmer.

On a dark, cloudy night, Nobbin catches a flicker of moonlight glimmering off something in the dung. It could be a button or a buckle, something that might fetch him a coin from the shoemaker. But it turns out to be a very valuable ring--the king's ring, and one that could offer Nobbin a life free from dung!

But Nobbin isn't a thief and would never steal from the king, so he makes his way to the castle. When he tries to return the ring, things only become more complicated, and he ends up having to help the hapless Prince Charming solve a mystery when the woodcutter's children--Gretel, and her younger brother, Hansel--go missing. Will the two be able to solve the case?

Kansas Connection: The author lives in Tonganoxie, KS.

STEEL TIDE: A SEAFIRE NOVEL (BOOK 2) Written by Natalie C. Parker Published by Penguin Random House (Razorbill)

Caledonia may have lost her crew, but she’s not done fighting yet. After nearly dying at the hand of a powerful foe, Caledonia is pulled from the sea and nursed back to health by a crew of former Bullets that call themselves Blades. The Blades escaped Aric Athair’s clutches and now live a nomadic existence, ready to disappear at a moment’s notice should trouble come their way.

But Caledonia wants to do more than just hide. She wants to find the Mors Navis and her beloved sisters. She wants to continue fighting Aric’s fleet and to take back the Bullet seas. She’ll need to do everything in her power to convince the Blades that fighting is their only option, that there has to be a life better than the one under Aric Athair’s reign, and that finding the women of the Mors Navis is the first step to revolution. *Sequel to Sea Fire, a 2019 Kansas Notable Book

Kansas Connection: Natalie C. Parker grew up in a Navy family finding home in coastal cities from Virginia to Japan. Now, she lives surprisingly far from any ocean in Lawrence, Kansas.

A CONSTELLATION OF ROSES Written by Miranda Asebedo Published by Harper Collins Publishers (Harper Teen)

Ever since her troubled mother abandoned her, Trix McCabe has preferred to stay on the move.

But when she lands with her long-lost relatives, she finds out that the McCabe women have talents like her own that defy explanation: pies that cure all ills, palm-reading that never misses the mark, knowledge of secrets that have never been told.

Before long, Trix feels like she might finally have found somewhere she belongs. But when her past comes back to haunt her, she’ll have to decide whether to take a chance on this new life . . . or keep running from the one she’s always known.

*A companion novel, The Deepest Roots, a 2019 Kansas Notable Book

Kansas Connection: Miranda Asebedo was born and raised in rural Kansas with a love of fast cars, open skies, and books. She carried that love of books to college, where she got her B.A. and M.A. in English, with an emphasis in Creative Writing and Literature. Miranda still lives on the prairie today with her family.

THE RECKLESS OATH WE MADE Written by Bryn Greenwood Published by Penguin Random House (G.P. Putnam's Sons)

Zee has never admitted to needing anybody. But she needs Gentry. Her tough exterior shelters a heart that’s loyal to the point of self-destruction, while autistic Gentry wears his heart on his sleeve, including his desire to protect Zee at all costs. When an abduction tears Zee’s family apart, she turns to Gentry—and sets in motion a journey and a love that will change their lives forever.

Kansas Connection: Bryn Greenwood is a fourth-generation Kansan and lives in Lawrence, KS. She earned a MA in Creative Writing from Kansas State University and continues to work in academia as an administrator.

A PERFECT SILHOUETTE Written by Judith Miller Published by Bethany House Publishers

In 1850, Mellicent “Mellie” Blanchard takes a job at a mill in Manchester, New Hampshire, to help support her family. In search of additional earning opportunities, she approaches a daguerreotype shop owner with the proposal that he hire her to make paper cuttings or silhouette portraits for those who can’t afford an expensive daguerreotype.

When a particularly charming customer–whose broad smile and twinkling eyes catch her off guard–asks to escort her home, the seeds of romance begin to blossom. All the pieces of her new life seem to have fallen perfectly into place, but when her new venture brings her an unexpected opportunity, she is confronted with the truth that all is not as it seems. Will Mellie, who is keeping secrets of her own, find happiness in the new life she has carved out for herself in the busy mill town?

Kansas Connection: The author lives in Overland Park, KS.

THE TOPEKA SCHOOL: A NOVEL Written by Ben Lerner Published by Macmillan (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Adam Gordon is a senior at Topeka High School, class of ’97. His mother, Jane, is a famous feminist author; his father, Jonathan, is an expert at getting “lost boys” to open up. They both work at a psychiatric clinic that has attracted staff and patients from around the world. Adam is a renowned debater, expected to win a national championship before he heads to college. He is one of the cool kids, ready to fight or, better, freestyle about fighting if it keeps his peers from thinking of him as weak. Adam is also one of the seniors who bring the loner Darren Eberheart—who is, unbeknownst to Adam, his father’s patient—into the social scene, to disastrous effect.

Kansas Connection: This book is set in Topeka, KS.

THE HEALER'S DAUGHTER: A NOVEL Written by Charlotte Hinger Published by Five Star Publishing

Bethany Herbert, daughter of a legendary healer, leaves the South for the new black community of Nicodemus, Kansas. Despite the hardships, the community comes to love the prairie. Bethany's mother, Queen Bess, comes to Nicodemus, as does the handsome lawyer Jed Talbot, who galvanizes the settlers. Bethany resists the call of her heart because Queen Bess warns her the best healers are chaste and single. When the Herbert women's medical procedures are undermined, Bethany nearly succumbs to Queen Bess's call for total segregation from the whites Bess hates. Sinister forces come into play through white politicians seeking the black vote, and sabotage by a woman within Nicodemus who yearns for the old color hierarchy. The people of Nicodemus fight back and ultimately triumph.

Kansas Connection: The story takes place in Nicodemus, KS. The author is a native Kansan currently living in Colorado.

HOW TO BE A FAMILY Written by Dan Kois Published by Little, Brown and Company

Dan Kois and his wife always did their best for their kids. Busy professionals living in the D.C. suburbs, they scheduled their children’s time wisely, and when they weren’t arguing over screen time, the Kois family-Dan, his wife Alia, and their two pre-teen daughters-could each be found searching for their own happiness. But aren’t families supposed to achieve happiness together? What happens when one frustrated dad turns his kids’ lives upside down in search of a new way to be a family?

In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois’ go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble.

Kansas Connection: Part of the story takes place in Kansas.

HEADWINDS Written by Edna Bell-Pearson Published by Meadowlark Books

When World War II makes her way to southwest Kansas, Edna Bell-Pearson’s life was forever changed. After meeting her husband Carl Ungerer—a pilot stationed in Liberal for the war— Edna’s life whirled around her, as she moved to the opposite corner of the state, and she became one of the first private female pilots in Kansas. Edna’s story, taking place over the course of five short years, tells of Ungerer Flying Service, a family-owned and operated business stationed in Marysville. As the business is born and takes on the challenges of life, Edna learns to appreciate the importance of the little things: hunting and fishing trips, a good housekeeper, and crisp, autumnal days without wind.

Kansas Connection: The author and her life story are from Kansas.

KANSAS CITY CHIEFS LEGENDS Written by Jeff Deters Published by Deters Publications

In Legends, fans can relive the best of a golden era of football with stories from Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, Travis Kelce, , , Jamaal Charles, , , and other Chiefs greats.

Kansas Connection: Jeff Deters is a sports reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

BIRDS, BONES, AND BEETLES Written by Chuck Warner Published by University Press of Kansas

Every day, in natural history museums all across the country, colonies of dermestid beetles diligently devour the decaying flesh off of animal skeletons that are destined for the museum’s specimen collection. That time-saving process was developed and perfected at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum by Charles D. Bunker, a lowly assistant taxidermist who would rise to become the curator of recent vertebrates and who made an indelible mark on his field.

Kansas Connection: Chuck Warner, grandson of Charles D. Bunker, is a Kansas native and is retired from a career in business and banking.

PETROGLYPHS OF THE KANSAS SMOKY HILLS Written by Rex C. Buchanan, Burke W. Griggs, & Joshua L Svaty Published by University Press of Kansas

Long before the coming of Euro-Americans, native inhabitants of what is now Kansas left their mark on the land: carvings in the soft orange and red sandstone of the states Smoky Hills. In a series of photographs viewers have a chance to read the story that these carvings tell of the region’s first people—and to appreciate an important feature of Kansas history and its landscape that is increasingly threatened by erosion and vandalism.

Kansas Connection: Rex C. Buchanan, a native of central Kansas, is the director emeritus of the Kansas Geological Survey at the University of Kansas.

- Burke W. Griggs, associate professor of law at Washburn University School of Law, is a fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and an affiliated scholar at the Bill Lane Center for the American West, both at Stanford University.

- Joshua L. Svaty is the fifth generation of his family to farm in Ellsworth County and has worked on natural resource issues with nonprofits and state and federal government. He was the fourteenth Kansas secretary of agriculture. www.kslib.info/2020KNB