Program Ideas

Your observance of Kansas Reads…Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen can be as simple as putting up one of the posters (Posters & Art, left column) with a copy of the book or hosting a book discussion (Questions for Discussion, How to Discuss a Book, left column). Or it can be as elaborate as your imagination can conceive. Read Our Boys and then discuss your own community, sports, other books like Joe Drape’s, or other topics suggested by the book.

The following are ideas that you can tailor to your own community’s needs—please explore as you like. Don’t be afraid to come up with something entirely different—some of these programming suggestions are from libraries that regularly offer similar adult programs, but some are from libraries that are trying something different this year.

Author visits to Libraries/Communities

• Joe Drape, author of Our Boys, is expected in Kansas early in 2012…watch this web page for more information.
• Visit the Read-Alikes list (Read-Alikes, left column) to see Kansas authors of books about community and about sports.
• Invite a local or nearby author or literary authority to lead a discussion of Our Boys or something similar they have written or read.
  

Discussions

• Ask a local resident to lead a book discussion over Our Boys.
• Host a brown bag lunch to talk about the book and how it relates to your own town.
• Work with your local book club or book discussion group to discuss Our Boys. If your community does not have a book club or book discussion group, consider starting one.
• Start your own one-book/one-community reading project locally.

Events

• Provide multiple copies of the book for:
  • a review
  • a literature selection
  • a read-aloud
  • a writing prompt for a short story/essay contest or classroom assignment
• Invite a local personality to discuss what is unique about your community.
• Organize a panel discussion of local officials and notables to share thoughts about how the Smith Center experience compares to your town or neighborhood.
• Sponsor an exhibit or display of local sports, high school activities, or community. Think about joining forces with schools, alumni groups, local photo clubs/stores, 4-H, Boy/Girl Scouts, newspapers, or using local school yearbooks.
• Organize a display of sporting trophies.
• Create your own unique community event—as Kansas Reads…Our Boys!

Previous Kansas
Reads Projects

2011
What Kansas Means to Me

2010
Dreams from My Father

2009
The Virgin of Small Plains

2008
In Cold Blood

2007
The Learning Tree