Little book offers big ideas from everyday heroes

In The Little Red Book of Everyday Heroes, author Sylvia Lovely, right, offers "simple but provocative prescriptions for civic engagement [that] tell how the Main Street heroes she knows transform communities with the ideas she explored in her first book," The Little Blue Book of Big Ideas, reviewer Al Smith writes in The Courier-Journal.

"With catchy slogans like 4 P's (Persons, Place, Perspective and Prosperity) and 3 T's (Talent, Technology and Tolerance), Lovely singles out successful transformations of community life in Morehead, Ky., and Moscow, Idaho, in which her League's consulting adjunct, the New Cities Institute, has been a partner," Smith writes. "In Morehead, a campaign to tie the town and the university closer started with "listening" sessions in which as many as 500 citizens shared ideas. In Moscow, home of the University of Idaho, the city leaders reached out to another university 12 miles to the west in Pullman, Wash., and created a 'knowledge corridor' to boost the economy of both towns."

Lovely, the executive director of the Kentucky League of Cities, "preaches inclusiveness, pointing to the benefits of cultural consciousness raising in staunchly fundamentalist enclaves like Campbellsville, Ky., where the Baptist university has recruited students from Mongolia and civic leaders host business prospects at a Mexican café," Smith writes for the Louisville newspaper's book page. (Read more) The book is published by Clark Publishing.