Our Fall 2025 Children’s book will be available October 6. We selected Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures, Young Reader’s Edition. Books will be available at the following locations: Iola Public Library, Community National Bank, Vision Source, Senior Center, City of Iola, Townhouse, Wild Bloom Coffee, Iola Pharmacy, G&W Foods, CHC SEK, Bennett Laundry, Ashley Clinic, and, Allen Community College.
From World War II through NASA’s golden age, four African-American women confidently and courageously steeped into the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now known as NASA). Their job? To provide the mathematical calculations that would help increate airplane production during wartime and eventually send the United States into space for the very first time. Hidden Figures follows the stories of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, who participated in some of the United States’ greatest aeronautic successes. These women lived through and persevered against the backdrop of some of the biggest movements ever to shape our nation’s history: the Civil Rights era, the Space Race, and the fight for gender equality.
The events that we have selected for this book are:
Tuesday, October 28 – Spin, Pop, Boom – Mad Science of KC – 6:30 pm at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center
Thursday, November 6 – Hidden Figures Movie Night – 6:30 pm at the Iola Public Library
Come to the Iola Library and enjoy space snacks and a movie
Iola Reads is a one book, one community project started in 2005 and is a collaboration of the library, USD 257, and the Bowlus Fine Arts Center, with support from the Allen County Historical Society (courtesy of Donna H.).
Learn more about the history of this community program under “Iola Reads – One Book, One Community Committee” on the Services Page.
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