The October 12 Hickory Reading Club meeting in Hickory Baptist Church was hosted by Jane Brand, Jackie Stamm, and Pam Waters, who served seasonal “soups and sides.” Bertie Lindley’s meditation focused on a dialogue in which a child questions God, “Who are you? Who am I?” He replies that he is all things good and that she is his. In trying/uncertain times, mankind questions; God affirms.
Pam Waters combined bans, biography, and book-burning as the evening’s program. The American Library Association’s research, emphasized in an annual Banned Books Week, has for over twenty years tracked patterns of challenges and bans, titles/varied types of materials being targeted, and sizes and types of groups involved.
Sam Weller’s 2005 biography, The Bradbury Chronicles, was lead-in topic for the “speculative fiction”/”sci-fi” novel Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953 but now banned. Amazingly, Ray Bradbury needed only nine days and a rented typewriter to portray an American dystopia of 2050 (approximate). “It was a pleasure to burn,” says “Fireman” Guy Montag, speaking of books, which ignite at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. His moral crisis hinges on a worse crime than burning books—not reading them!
