In five simple words, glad to see it back (okay, IN PRINT). This was one of the first general volumes on Kansas history that I had the pleasure to read. It flows quite well and spurs readers to pursue further research on various topics. It is primarily chronological, spanning the prehistory period thru the present. Kansas has had a rich and multi-layered history, so no real topic gets more attention than another, so it is primarily an excellent resource tool to get one's feet wet regarding various topics. The chapter on Bleeding Kansas on the Civil War were quite useful. Richmond is a scholar on this Kansas time period, and the chapter is excellent in dispelling myths and providing information on both sides of the slavery issue. Also enjoyed the chapter on late nineteenth century Kansas development, taming of Western Kansas, etc. After noticing this book for sale, I went back and reread several chapters of this book, which goes back to the 1970's. Richmond's charming writing style accomplishes what it should accomplish: popularizes a subject relatively few readers want to go on their own...and actually makes the reading go fast and enjoyable.

I logged on just now to find the sequals or the "rest" of the story. Each one ended leaving me with a desire to know what was coming next. None of these were just "love stories"; they showed the shaping of characters through events and a reliance on God for answers and for acceptance. I enjoyed each story.

This is a delightful book about ways to have fun in Kansas City! When my friends and family found out I was moving to Kansas they were so full of remorse for me---you know, the stereotypes of flat, flat, flat cornfields with remnants of Dorothy's house, one-room school houses and forgotten lands (no, make that undeveloped lands) where everyone wears gingham frocks and plays their fiddle after dinner (nothing wrong with that!)...well, this book is going home, to EVERYONE'S home that I know for Christmas this year! HAH! Look who's house will be the guest flop next! Thanks for your fun book!

Fascinating look at life in Alaska in the early 1900s from the perspective of one very game schoolteacher. Author was a true adventuress in an era before women were allowed to be much other than wives and mothers. An interesting read.

I thought this was a very enjoyable read! It particulary appealed to the five senses! Some flaws, but overall recommended.

For the most part, the citizens of Buffalo Springs, Kansas are law abiding. It has been seventeen years since the last homicide. The sheriff's brother, who is one-fourth Cheyenne, dresses up as an Indian. He goes to the local park seeking a vision, but instead stumbles over the mutilated corpse of Reverend Peter Samms.

The deputy chases after an outsider, a black man who the law enforcement official believes killed the Reverend. During the pursuit, the deputy wrecks the car. Next, police officials find the Reverend's father dead with his head scalped in the same way as his son. These two murders are linked to the kidnapping of the sheriff's daughter by two dysfunctional adults. The sheriff needs to outwit the psychotic duo while outrunning a tornado.

MAD DOG AND ENGLISHMAN does not contain Cocker or Russell, but remains a fascinating, unusual police procedural due to the cast. The ensemble seems to have just stepped out of the Twilight Zone or perhaps Eerie, Indiana. Thus, the plot and characters make for an uncanny tale that J.M. Hayes could turn into a series that serves as the exciting center of weirdness in the mystery universe.

Harriet Klausner

I have this in my collection. It has wonderful patterns -- all of which have paper templates, however the quilts have hundreds of pieces in them and can be very time consuming to piece. I made the "Jacobs Ladder" quilt in the book and it took forever.

When Miriam moves from a big city to a small country town, she wonders whether she will find a friend. If she does, will she find a friend that will be good for her, or will they push her to do wrong? Follow this story as it unfolds. I enjoyed reading this book and found it to be a fun tale. The book is written well and well worth reading. It is appropriate for all ages except really young children.

Mobil guides in general have some of the info you need for your stay but I prefer location specific guides more. They only list a few of each (hotels, restaurants, attractions etc.) Overall it was helpful but I wouldn't use it by itself. There isn't enough info about each area.

Tobias of the Amish We are linked to our parents in ways we hardly recognize. For the child who grows up under a fractured roof there will always be something unfathomable about the parent who dies too young. It is important to fill in the gaps towards understanding, take the measure of that faded figure in the background.  Ervin R. Stutzman, Moderator of Mennonite Church USA, is that child. In a decade-long research and writing project, he went on an exceptional journey to find his father, Tobias Stutzman, who at age 37 was killed in a car accident. Ervin was only a toddler and has no memories of his father. In the years after Tobe's death, Ervin's mother Emma spoke little of him, nor did others in the Amish community of which he had been a part. It was as if a veil of silence had been drawn, secrets tucked away. Years later Ervin determined to dive into the wreck and retrieve the cargo of the past. Tobias Stutzman came to maturity in an agriculture community but knew early on that he did not get his juice from farming. He dreamed of his own woodworking business. In his first job he had permission to use his employer's shop for his own woodworking projects. He had what one might call an avarice for doing, seeing in every possibility an opportunity that might not come his way again. He made things out of wood, and later, metal: tables, cabinets, custom-built buggies, wooden wagon boxes, address lamps, chicken catchers, feed scoops, tomato racks, self-watering flower pots and glove display racks. He even marketed sewing machines. "If it is made of wood, we can do it!" said a sign outside his shop during the earlier years. A recurrent theme is borrowed money.  The Stutzmans got into debt even as a newly married couple. Tobe performed on a grand scale; he appears not to have foreseen or planned for major decisions. Things were entered but not balanced. Tobe was perhaps unpracticed in an awareness of his own needs. Because the contours of his heart were warm and generous, he was easily distracted by the claims of others. One is struck by his raw capability as he struggled to keep work and family afloat. Yet his story includes no turning from bad habits. Instead he carries on blindly, creating the same painful situation - a trail of debt - over and again. Had he seen his besetting sin with clarity, he might have asked his community to make him accountable much earlier than they later did, on their own terms. What went amiss with Tobe's strivings?  Sociologists remind us that behaviors in families are usually passed along and can become the emotional legacy of generations. Tobias' parents, John and Anna, kept their counsel about their financial woes and marital disappointments. John was rather given to abrupt announcements of upheaval ("We're moving!) without much explanation. He did not come to Tobe and Emma's wedding; it is not clear what the falling-out was about. Possibly Tobe carried this oblique and flawed communication - the constipated silence, the shutting down - into his own family life. Indeed, Tobe and Emma seemed bound by opposite needs in their subterranean drama of spenders versus savers  - his restlessness to wander and experiment, her need to find a settled place.   It is important to see our forebears in their lapses, in their all too human misdemeanors, for they are we. Their besetting sins are likely ours, too. Distinction and idiosyncrasy alike provide the flickering backdrop in all of our lives. We all carry invisible scars from childhood. None of us live up to our deepest principles. Yet when one writes about the past, it is tempting to present things in the best possible light against future scrutiny. There is many a lightly-sleeping dragon past which one must tiptoe, not least the beast called denial, for it would be much easier to idealize such a loss and leave some things well and alone. Ervin Stutzman does not assign to his past a grandeur it could never have possessed, nor does he hold an exaggerated subservience to it that would preclude a clear seeing.   Tobias of the Amish is a finely wrought portrait of Amish life in its observation of the Ordnung, those boundaries set by rule. The story invites questions about how one defines success. There is a certain poignancy in a wall motto Tobe once made: "If mistakes were money, I'd be rich." (Perhaps today he would be investing in stocks or conglomerates.)  Would Tobe have been accepted into the middle of his community, and not on its combative edges, had he put his energies into something perceived to be more "spiritual"? Perhaps the foibles of a well-meaning father set forth a compelling counter-schooling. Unlike his father, Ervin had educational opportunities that have drawn him into a many-sided academic world. In contrast to his father, he can live in a dozen cities of the mind, cities about which his father might only have dreamed.   Tobe exhibited a move-on spirit in a community that valued, rather, earning a living in an approved occupation in a settled place. He chafed under the patterns of authority and restraints on behavior, and he found ways around official channels. He installed electric lights in his shop without asking permission. He and his wife gave their children second names in a community that viewed an additional moniker as worldly. They eventually joined the Beachy church because Tobe wanted modern conveniences.  Clearly, his entrepreneurial bent and its attendant risk-taking fell outside the comfort zone of others, and eventually they turned away. Who knows, today Tobe might be diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder: the powerlessness to focus amid many perceived competing urgencies. (One pictures his work area piled high with unfinished tasks.)    Ervin Stutzman's link to his father was renegotiated, even in death. On a clear day you can see a long way back.