The were children when they suffered a brutal, forced exile — trekking across the Sahara with many dying along the way. They survived a refugee camp in Kenya. Then they came to North Texas. Now four of the famous ‘lost boys of Sudan’ are grown up — and appear in a graphic novel.

The rise of trendy 7th Street in Fort Worth hits some snags, SMU Press is back (kind of), Liz Mikel is looking at Broadway and UNT arts folks will benefit from a wealthy man’s will — all in this roundup.

Dissident Chinese artist Ai WeiWei was released from arrest two weeks ago, and now TEDxSMU announces its next salon — about artistic expression and repression in China.

As a whole, Texas received 14 grants totaling more than $2 millionfrom the $40 million awarded by the National Endowment for the Humanities. In North Texas, we’re looking to develop some oral history around the JFK assassination while putting a lot of historic photo negatives into a cold vault.

It was quite popular early in the last century, but today many look at the ukulele as a novelty instrument. Yet the ukulele’s helping some North Texans discover a musical side they didn’t know they had:

The Amon Carter Museum opened as a regional collection of Western-frontier art, but over the past 50 years, it re-invented itself as a leading museum of American art, including a major photography collection. So – what now? That’s why its new director, Andrew Walker, is trying to re-think, re-frame the museum.

Today in the roundup: A briefing on The Onion, Sundance comes calling to local filmmakers and a new library in Irving.

William Shakespeare is befuddling enough for many modern Americans to grasp, how hard must it be for young immigrants, just learning English as a second language? A bit like asking first-graders to take a crack at quadratic equations? Shakespeare Dallas has been offering a program through DISD that tries to make that leap — with clowns and stage combat and a live performance.

Miroslav Penkov teaches creative writing at UNT, and his debut story collection, ‘East of the West,’ has been getting excited reviews. He’s a long way from reading under-the-counter American novels in Bulgaria — and trying to imitate Stephen King.

In the Saturday Spotlight, we’re bringing classical music to the next generation.