Kansas City Public Library

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.

Schuyler Bailar became the first openly trans person to compete for a men's D1 team in the NCAA. He'll speak at the Kansas City Public Library on Thursday about his recent book "He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters."

A special Kansas City kickball tournament offers a chance for blind and visually impaired students to play — using beeping balls and bases. Plus: A former Hallmark artist has a new graphic novel that shows how being a "Mexikid" can be universal.

Pedro Martín will discuss his graphic memoir, “Mexikid,” which follows his family's trip to bring his grandfather to the United States from Mexico, on Oct. 12 during the Kansas City Public Library and Missouri Humanities' Heartland Book Festival.

Missouri bans more books from schools than any other state except Texas and Florida, according to PEN America. Margaret Atwood and “That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America” author Amanda Jones visited Kansas City for Banned Books Week.

In the mid-1990s, the Kansas City Public Library was threatening to close its branch on the Westside. Librarian Irene Ruiz went door to door campaigning for the building to stay. Today, that branch of the library is named after her.

Armada con una grabadora, la bibliotecaria de Kansas City, Irene Ruiz, capturó la evolución de la historia del vecindario de Westside e hizo de la biblioteca un lugar más acogedor para los inmigrantes mexicanos y latinos que vivían allí. Hoy en día, la sucursal del vecindario de Westside la Biblioteca Pública de Kansas City, que cuenta con la sólida colección de idioma español que Ruiz comenzó, lleva su nombre en su honor.

Armed with a tape recorder, Kansas City librarian Irene Ruiz captured the evolving history of the Westside and made the library a more welcoming place for the Mexican immigrants and Latinos who lived there. Today, the Westside branch of the Kansas City Public Library — featuring the robust Spanish language collection that Ruiz began — is named in her honor.