One Book One Community: Hidden Figures

This spring, the entire parish will go over the moon for the East Baton Rouge Parish Library’s One Book One Community program featuring Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly. Now in its twelfth year, One Book One Community encourages the entire parish to come together to read the same book and enjoy the many free programs the library and its nonprofit partner Forum 35 offer to further explore and appreciate the chosen title.

Featured as number one on the New York Times bestseller list in 2017 and inspiring the Oscar-nominated film of the same title, Hidden Figures tells the true stories of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson: three mathematicians working for NASA during the space race in the 1960s and prior, chronicling the discrimination they faced as African American women in a field dominated at the time by white men.

Assistant Director of the East Baton Rouge Parish Library Mary Stein said Hidden Figures was selected this year because whether or not you prefer to enjoy it as a book, movie, or audiobook, the story provides something that will interest everyone. “Maybe you care about education, race relations, or empowering minorities to work in science. Maybe you care about the space program, or the space race and the Cold War, or maybe you just love Tom Hanks,” said Stein. “No matter what you care about, there’s something for you…And that’s all you need to invite this story into your life.”

The program includes an infinite cosmos of events at different library branches for kids, grownups, and everyone in between. Blast off with a launch party fit for the whole family, then bring the kids back in March for a screening of Magic Treehouse: Space Mission in the Louisiana Art & Science Museum's traveling planetarium, the Discovery Dome. The Hidden Figures movie will be screened multiple times throughout the area, along with some classic space flicks like Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff at the Main Library. Teenagers are invited to flex their STEM skills at a series of Tech for Teens! events, and the kids will have the opportunity to hear space-themed stories and play with the Women of NASA LEGO set throughout the month of March. Adults and teenagers can get the adrenaline pumping and put problem-solving skills to the test with a Hidden Figures themed escape room. The library has even invited “Boundary Breakers” to present their experience as real-life space pioneers, including Dr. Renee Horton, a lead engineer at the NASA Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, and Jim Slade, science correspondent for ABC who covered the American Space Program from its inception; an actress will portray Katharine Wright, sister of the famous first-flyers Orville and Wilbur who was instrumental in publicizing the mission. For more information about the plethora of events offered, visit ReadOneBook.org.

Stein stresses that reading the entire book is not at all a requirement to get involved in the conversation, and the fun. “Whether you’re watching Hidden Figures, reading it, listening to it, coming to a program, attending a discussion group, or going into the children’s room and making LEGO astronauts out of the NASA LEGO sets; you can participate, in some way, and we can all be on the same page for a brief period of time,” Stein said. “And it’s these shared experiences that make the community stronger.”