Lyons Regional Library

Ready to Fly is the true story of Sylvia Townsend, an African American girl who falls in love with ballet after seeing Swan Lake on TV. Although there aren't many ballet schools that will accept a girl like Sylvia in the 1950s, her local bookmobile provides another possibility. A librarian helps Sylvia find a book about ballet and the determined seven-year-old, with the help of her new books, starts teaching herself the basics of classical ballet....

"Who was the real Atticus Finch? The publication of Go Set a Watchman in 2015 forever changed how we think about Atticus Finch. Once seen as a paragon of decency, he was reduced to a small-town racist. How are we to understand this transformation? In Atticus Finch, historian Joseph Crespino draws on exclusive sources to reveal how Harper Lee's father provided the central inspiration for each of her books. A lawyer and newspaperman, A. C. Lee was a...

"In 1954, reporter Uri Dan met a young military commander named Ariel Sharon and followed him closely for more than half a century. Dan became Sharon's trusted adviser and a witness to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict's defining moments - from clandestine meetings with world leaders to open warfare in the Sinai.". "This behind-the-scenes narrative traces Sharon's inexorable rise to political power, his history-making encounters with international...

Los Angeles in the 1960s: riots in Watts and on the Sunset Strip, wild weekends in Malibu, late nights at The Daisy discotheque, openings at the Ferus Gallery, and the convergence of pop art, rock and roll, and the New Hollywood. At the center of it all, one inspired, improbable, and highly combustible couple--Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward--lived out the emblematic love story of '60s L.A. The home these two glamorous young actors created for themselves...

"The untold story of the unique fifty-year friendship between two American icons: John Glenn, the unassailable pioneer of space exploration and Ted Williams, indisputably the greatest hitter in baseball history"--

These twenty-six suspense-filled stories unfold from across Germany, Poland, Great Britain, the United States, and more, providing an inspiring reminder of women and girls' refusal to sit on the sidelines around the world and throughout history.

Meet Katherine Johnson, a brilliant mathematician who worked at NASA in the early 1950s until retiring in 1986. Katherine's unparalleled calculations (done by hand) helped plan the trajectories for NASA's Mercury and Apollo missions (including the Apollo 11 moon landing). She is said to be one of the greatest American minds of all time.--

"Madam C.J. Walker was the first Black woman millionaire in the US. After having problems with her scalp, she created a successful line of hair products for Black women. Learn more about Madam C.J. Walker!"--

"An internal account of the political activities taking place inside the Kremlin from the fall of the USSR under the administration of Gorbachev to the future of Russia under Putin"--Provided by publisher. "Elite-level Soviet politics, privileged access to state secrets, knowledge about machinations inside the Kremlin--such is the environment in which Andrei A. Kovalev lived and worked. In this memoir of his time as a successful diplomat serving...

"Lawrence Reddick (1910-1995) was among the most notable African American intellectuals of his generation. The second curator of the Schomburg Library and a University of Chicago PhD, Reddick helped spearhead Carter Woodson's black history movement in the 1930s, guide the Double Victory campaign during World War II, lead the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the Cold War, mentor Martin Luther King Jr. throughout his entire public life,...