Books and Cowboy Boots Tulsa Summer Reads 2021

For a month of this summer, I was fortunate to be able to spend time in a location I had never been to. I visted Tulsa, Oklahoma with my daughter who was there for a summer dance intensive at Tulsa Ballet. While she danced, I enjoyed relaxed down time and spent hours knitting, doing embriodery and reading. A lovely longed for opportunity to catch up on some of the tiles in the stacks I've collected over recent months.

My Tulsa summer reads are listed with some thoughts below:

Faultlines The Social Justise Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe by Voddie Bauchum is excellent well researched information about how Critical Race Theory is dividing the Evangelical Church. Based on extensive study including understanding from James Lindsey's work (see title below) Faultlines includes personal experiences from Mr. Baucham's life that make for engaging reading for a more informed inderstanding of the current hot topic of Critical Race Theory.

Cynical Theories How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About  Race, Gender, and Identity by Helen Pluckrose & James Lindsey. Cynical Theories gives a thorough academic explanation of the what, where, when and how to of Critical Theory. It is a tough read in that it is very academic and critical race theory itself is confusing in it's co-opting of language and the alteration of the common understanding of many words. This is a definitive guide though - highly recomended it you are interested in the background of Critical Theory.

Britfield by C.R. Stewart This title is the second in a series of adventure novels. I read the first in the series as part of the SchoolhouseTeachers homeschool review crew which, by the way, is an excellent place to read about a variety of homeschooling resources if you are looking for materials for your family's learning lifestyle. The series helps fill the gap of good reads for pre and early teen boys. The hardest part of encouraging an interest in the boys in reading in our family was finding titles that satisfied their interest in adventure and excitment with a touch of danger. The titles usually intended for this age range for either boys or girls are typically, in my opinion, usually too mature in certain subject matter, too light on healthy adventure and too simple in the reading level. C.R. Stewart covers all of these requirements with a healthy dose of western civ mixed in. Recomended for your preteens and would be an exciting family read aloud.

Why Place Matters Editied by Wilfred M. McClay & Ted V. McAllister. Why Place Matters is a collection of essays that explore the connections people have to the places where they live. The value of appreciating those places, the history and the engagement in community of where we live is presented by a range of writers. 

"Every place is a universe unto itself."
 Local History: A Way to Place and Home -
Joseph A. Amato
Included in Why Place Matters

The essays reinforced my desire to drive outside of Tulsa to the largest Prairie Preserve in the U.S. Having grown up in Nebraska, the view of a native prairie lanscape soothes my eyes and soul. A ninety minute drive out of town presented us with a wide open horizon and a stop in the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma.

Pawhuska is the nearest thriving small town to the Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma. The town offers shopping and dining options made available by locals including the well known Pioneer Woman's Mercentile. Our hunger pangs were met with a wait for dinner at Ree Drummand's popular restaurant, so we wandered the small town while we waited for our table. Even on the small town streets we were met with a few unexpected obstacles. 

Our sidewalk stroll was blocked despite the traffic free streets. A few questions, asked of others milling around and of the cashier at a stop in a chic clothing store displaying the most beautiful cowboy boots I have ever seen, revealed the purpose of the road blocks. The barricades were placed to provide un-intruded space for the filming of a movie.  

Which led of course, to just a few more questions (and here finally is the cowboy boots to summer book list connection). The movie, being filmed by Matin Scorsese and staring Leonardo Dicaprio is based on (here's the additional summer read) true historical events of the Osage tribe on the Oklahoma plains, written about in the book Killers of the Flower Moon, The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. We were directed to a local shop that had the book in stock. An easy sell to this prairie history loving fascinated reader.  Also, more within my travel budget than the gorgeous cowboy boots.

Killers of the Flower Moon is a full out high drama mystery that is based on horrific events of the 1920s during the oil boom in Northern Oklahoma. The research David Grann did to pull this story together had to have taken years. I had never heard of the writer but the extent of the research required to present this narrative shows a tenacity that is exhaustive and exhausting to contemplate. Hooray for David Grann for having made it available to read and for the much deserved honor of having the work turned into film. This was an adventure to read and added to the adventure and meaning of our Oklahoma visit. Both the read and a visit to the Oklahoma prairie are highly recomended as I assume will be the movie once released. Until I see the movie though, I'll continue to enjoy any pairie view with an endless sky in attempts to erase any visual imagrey of the Osage tragedies.

The wide horizon of the Oklahoma prairie.