By: Jim Hayes
The flyer for the Banned Book Reading caught me by surprise I remember it being a thing in the mid-1980’s and 1990’s but had not heard about it in years.
However, if it was still an issue, I was willing to go and read a few paragraphs from “Huckleberry Finn” for the cause.
But, when I stepped into Steinhauer-Rogan-Black room 150 just short of 1 p.m. Wednesday, the Mark Twain classic was nowhere to be found.
“Alas,” I thought to myself, glancing over the selection brought over by the Thigpen Library. But then spotted another old friend. Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time” was sitting there unselected.
The first in L’Engle’s Time Quartet, I snagged it, trying desperately to recall a passage that might have qualified it as a banned book.
Published in 1962, “A Wrinkle in Time” tells the story of Meg Murry, younger brother Charles Wallace and friend Calvin O’Keefe’s mission to rescue Meg and Charles’ father from an unknown evil force.
It has spent most of its life amongst the other books which have been challenged.
Conservative Christians object to the book because it implies that Jesus is simply an advanced human.
So it was time to read. I signaled to the moderator, Librarian Laura Sheets that I was ready, took the microphone and addressed the 34 people in the room.
“I am reading from Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” I explained and proceeded to read about a page before giving way to someone else.
In all, 10 people read from titles as diverse as “Go Ask Alice” to “A Clockwork Orange.”
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