The Cherry Cola Book Club - By Ashton Lee Page 0,66

if you’ll excuse us, Susan and I will keep on circulating,” Connie put in, giving them both a naughty little wink. “Please, you two eat and drink as much as you want.”

Once Maura Beth had helped herself to a plate and a drink, and Jeremy had refreshed both of his, they found a couple of seats near the fire and settled in.

“Mom told me what you’re trying to do with the book club down here, and I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to meet you. To Kill a Mockingbird is my all-time favorite Southern novel,” he was saying after a swig of his beer. “I don’t think it can ever be reviewed enough, and I make all my students do a term paper on it. It’s a rite of passage in my classroom. Sometimes I describe it as a rite of passage for all true Southerners.”

Maura Beth was content to let him do most of the talking while she took him in from head to toe. He was tall and dark haired like his father but had more of his mother’s softer features, and she liked the fact that he enjoyed his food so much. However, he was no Stout Fella. Her assessment was that he was just about the right size—someone who might have leapt off one of the pages of her cherished journal of wishes.

“. . . and it’s so unusual for a novel to become an instant classic,” Jeremy continued. “But Mockingbird was the rare exception. The problem now in teaching it is that we’re so far away from that era of turmoil, and so much is taken for granted that was once a great struggle. There are still issues to resolve, of course, and I try to point them out. Getting my students to understand the novel in the context of its time is a tremendous challenge, but it’s one I’m determined to meet.”

Maura Beth finally put in a word. “Yes, I know what you mean. I think I’d like to make that the focal point of our big meeting in a couple of weeks. I want people to reflect upon the changes in the South since Harper Lee wrote the book. Of course, I wasn’t around during all that civil rights turbulence.”

“Same here, and I’m afraid my students are far more interested in technology than political history.”

Maura Beth rolled her eyes and tilted her head. “Oh, yes. The cell phone thing, etcetera. It’s all we can do to keep patrons from talking up a storm in the library. They hide back in the stacks and think we won’t hear them gossiping and carrying on with their friends. It’s so distracting. We have signs up everywhere, but they might as well be runes.”

“Yep, those ringtones still go off now and then in my classroom despite the threat of detention. I’m afraid it’s an addiction for some people.”

“Sometimes I wonder what the future of communicating through books will be with all this electronic instant gratification,” Maura Beth added. “There are those who feel that some readers will always want to hold a bound copy in their hands—something that they can put on a shelf and hand down to their children as part of our cultural heritage. And then there’s the doomsday scenario which always favors books.”

“Tell me about it.”

“It’s the one where if civilization falls apart and there’s no technology left, you can still read a book lying in the grass munching berries or sitting up in a tree eating a banana.”

“Never heard that one before,” he said, tossing his head back as he laughed.

“That’s because I just made it up. I have some other scenarios, too.”

Now it was his turn to listen to her meanderings, and there was nothing but admiration on his face when she finished. “You really are a dyed-in-the-wool librarian, aren’t you?”

“Guilty. I give my mother full credit for encouraging my love affair with books. She took me to the Covington Library when I was six and made me think summer reading was the only way a kid could have fun. That, licking cherry Popsicles to get a red tongue, and playing in the sprinkler to cool off.”

The two of them kept probing, tackling various pop culture issues of the day and finding that they were in agreement for the most part. They would have preferred to be left alone entirely, but no matter where they moved throughout the great room, there was someone to hug or a hand to shake and