Kansas City Public Library

There are powerful economic messages to take from the careers of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, writes a University of Kansas professor. A new book lays out what their successes help us understand about the role of everyday women in the economy.

Edward McCabe helped establish an all-Black Kansas town on his mission to create a state inhabited and run by freed slaves. In a new book, author Caleb Gayle writes about how McCabe earned the nickname of "Black Moses" and what his quest for liberation meant.

The Kansas City Public Library announced a "Strategic Plan" to meet community needs, funded by a new grant. Anyone can weigh in on what they want it to include.

Derrick Barnes felt there wasn't wide enough representation of Black people in the books he read as a kid. The Kansas City native's new picture book, “I Got You,” is his latest effort to write characters who can "just be human," he says.

Gay rights activism at the University of Kansas was led in the 1970s by the Lawrence Gay Liberation Front, but it took 10 years and a lawsuit for the student group to gain official recognition. Now, Katherine Rose-Mockry, retired director of KU’s Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity, has pieced that history together.

When the school year ends, the need for literacy support does not. Here’s help in finding in-person and online summer reading programs around the Kansas City area.

As the gay rights movement began picking up steam in the 1970s, Barbara Grier co-founded the largest lesbian publishing company in the world — right from her Kansas City home. Grier was bold, controversial, and unstoppable in her mission to make books reflect the people and love stories in her life.

Soman Chainani’s best-selling “The School for Good and Evil” series was adapted into a Netflix movie in 2022. His debut graphic novel, “Coven,” marks the return of a trio of witches from the successful series.

A Pulitzer-prize winning play, trendy fantasy series, a whistleblower memoir and more were picked by Up To Date's panel of book lovers as their current favorites. Find recommendations from local booksellers and librarians, as well as suggestions from our listeners.

Author Frances Levine tells the stories of a mix of women, each with different and very personal reasons for taking America’s first great international commercial highway to the West, in her book "Crossings: Women on the Santa Fe Trail."

Christmas Ranch Tree Farm in Excelsior Springs has been a destination for generations of families in the Kansas City area every holiday season — but it takes a lot of work. Plus: It's now a lot easier to find out what your Kansas City neighborhood looked like in 1940, thanks to the public library.

In 1940, Works Progress Administration workers took photos of every building in Kansas City — houses, restaurants, shops, gas stations and more. Kansas City Public Library maintains more than 50,000 of the images, and a new website is making them easier than ever to browse.