What Kansas Means to Me is a wonderful collection of essays and poems expounding on the virtues and vices of life in Kansas. The selected works span the last hundred years, opening with turn-of-the-century essays on Kansas Puritanism by Carl Becker and William Allen White, and closing with Denise Low’s ode to modern, rural Kansas.

The works included are almost exclusively a celebration of Kansas history and culture. W.G. Clugston portrays life in Kansas as the great struggle for democracy and equality. Milton Eisenhower writes of the combination of Puritan ethics and southern cultural traditions that are “The Strength of Kansas.” And Peg Wherry and Denise Low look to the “straight roads,” blue skies, and “level land” of rural Kansas for inspiration in their touching tributes to a landscape that is decidedly not flat or boring. Noted Kansas author Thomas Fox Averill provides a heartfelt introduction and prefaces to each essay.

What Kansas Means to Me celebrates life in a place that is often looked over, owing to its distance from what some would call the “civilized world.” But this flyover state has much to offer to both residents and visitors. The authors here make sure that everyone understands the beauty that lies outside of the metropolis. ( )