Kansas

Lois Ruby's "Steal away home". It's set in Lawrence, KS and alternates between the present and the Civil War time. There is a secret room in the house. It was on the William White Award list. Published date is 1994. Lois Ruby is a former KS author. (the sequel would be Soon Be Free): In two parallel stories, a Quaker family in Kansas in the late 1850s operates a station on the Underground Railroad, while almost 150 years later twelve-year-old Dana moves into the same house and finds the skeleton of a black woman who helped the Quakers. Ruby, Lois.

Title: Steal away home / by Lois Ruby.

Abstract: In two parallel stories, a Quaker family in Kansas in the late 1850s operates a station on the Underground Railroad, while almost 150 years later twelve-year-old Dana moves into the same house and finds the skeleton of a black woman who helped the Quakers.

Title: Soon be free / Lois Ruby.

Publication info: New York : Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2000.

General note: Sequel to: Steal away home.

Abstract: Thirteen-year-old Dana investigates a mystery involving the old Kansas house that her parents have turned into a bed and breakfast business; in a parallel story, a Quaker boy living in the house in 1857 sets out to help some fugitive slaves to freedom.

Jayhawker (Beatty, Patricia)

Cowboys and Longhorns by Jerry Stanley

Adaline Falling Star by Mary Pope Osborne

Irene Bennet Brown's Skitterbrain. It is about a girl who allows the family cow to join a cattle drive headed for Wichita. She is desperate because there is a new baby in the family and the mother is ill.

Airball by Harkrader that was on the William Allen White. It might be a stretch, but that could certainly be tied to KU and basketball history!

Friends and Enemies by LouAnn Gaeddert--In 1941 in Kansas, as America enters World War II, fourteen-year-old William finds himself alienated from his friend Jim, a Mennonite who does not believe in fighting for any reason, as they argue about the war.

Jim Dandy by Hadley Irwin: Living after the Civil War on a Kansas homestead with his stern stepfather, thirteen-year-old Caleb raises a beloved colt and becomes involved in General Custer's raids on the Cheyenne.

The Return of the Spanish Bit Saga books are good by Don Coldsmith.

His book, Tallgrass, would be good but too long for 7th grade.

Friends and Enemies by LouAnn Gaeddert Skitterbrain by Irene Bennett Brown Great Turkey Walk by Kathleen Karr Airball by L.D. Harkrader

Don Coldsmith's 'Trail of the Spanish Bit' a few years back. The author came to visit as well. He's a Dr. in Emporia who writes about a lost Spanish Conquistador in KS who comes to marry and live in a Plains Indian tribe. Coldsmith wrote the book after stumbling upon a 300-500 year old horse bit of Spanish-workmanship. He then mused on the provenance of that bit in KS- how it came to KS, who would have brought it, who would have used it and cared for it until KS was settled centuries later, etc. (Think 'Dances with Wolves' set in the 1500's with undertones of 'The Man From Snowy River' an aftertaste of 'The Thornbirds').

Max Yoho's 'Moon Butter Route' and 'The Revival'. Both are historical fiction accounts set in SE KS during the 1920's prohibition era. Yoho is sometimes referred to as a modern-day Mark Twain as he is terribly funny and very satirical. His books aren't long, but very funny. Also, they delve into the Italian-American heritage of several SE KS communities (like Pittsburg) and the mafia link that weaved in and out of these small KS towns, Kansas City, and Chicago during that time period.

Tom Averill's 'What KS Means To Me" which is a collection of short stories on that topic from various authors.

Eunice Boeve, 142 pages, easy read. Sorry, it's more along the lines of Bleeding Kansas, but thought I would share it any way. Maggie Rose and Sass

Eunice Boeve

Maggie Rose and Sass explores the differences between two races and the culture of the times. The novel is set in 1888 in a fictional town based on Nicodemus, Kansas, a town settled ten years earlier by ex-slaves from Kentucky. Life in Georgia with an ugly-tempered, racist grandmother has not prepared the orphaned Maggie Rose for Solomon Town whose citizens are almost all black. Sass has lived all her life in Solomon Town, the daughter of an ex-slave mother and a free-born, educated, mixed-race father. Raised in such totally different cultures, the two girls are bound to clash.

Seely, Debra.

Title: The last of the roundup boys / by Debra Seely.

Publication info: New York : Holiday House, c2004.

Abstract: In 1885 in Kansas Tom, the son of a poor farmer, is hired as a cowboy on a cattle ranch and faces the challenges of both herding work and a forbidden romance with Evie, the ranch owner's independently-minded daughter.

Hite, Sid.

Title: Stick and Whittle / Sid Hite.

Publication info: New York : Scholastic Press, 2000.

Abstract: In 1872, while journeying from Texas to Kansas, a Civil War veteran named Melvin meets a sixteen-year-old orphan, another Melvin, and they give each other nicknames and become partners and traveling companions on an exciting adventure.

Title: Winter wheat / Jeanne Williams.

Abstract: In 1874 sixteen-year-old Cobie leaves Russia with her five sisters and Mennonite parents to settle on the harsh Kansas prairies and build a new life.

Lincoln's little girl: a true story by Frank Trump is about Grace Bedell, the little girl from New York State who suggested that Lincoln grow a beard.

She and her husband later homesteaded in Kansas (up around Minneapolis KS, Tescott maybe?). It really doesn't get into the civil war as much as pioneer life ane the more civilized era of the turn of the century. I were raising money (Lincoln pennies) to restore her home and make it a historical site. I think that info could be found on the internet.
 * think* I remember reading that the school children of her Kansas hometown