Published on: Wednesday, September 29, 2010

By Howard Feintuch

Residents across Prince George’s County will meet at their local public libraries to discuss the same book as part of One Maryland One Book events, Maryland’s only statewide community reading program. 

Beltsville Branch Library manager Barbara Spears held a lively discussion Sept. 20 as part of the One Maryland One Book program with a group of residents at Riderwood, a retirement community with a sprawling Silver Spring campus partially in both Prince George’s and Montgomery counties.

The group analyzed the book “Outcasts United: An American Town, A Refugee Team, and One Woman’s Quest to Make a Difference” by Warren St. John. This year’s One Maryland One Book selection is a story of a soccer team of refugees in Clarkston, Ga., and their Jordanian coach, Luma Mufleh.

Prince George’s County Memorial Library System is holding similar discussion groups throughout the month of October at the Oxon Hill, Bowie, Largo-Kettering, Laurel and Hyattsville branches.

For this particular discussion group at Riderwood, Spears began by having everyone in the room briefly share their thoughts on the book. The group universally praised it with words such as “marvelous,” “inspiring” and “fascinating.”

“The book is powerful in the way it got into the lives of these young people and into the lives of the rest of the community,” said Norm Williams, a Riderwood resident who participated in the discussion group.

Selma Barnett, another Riderwood resident, said, “the book got me thinking about other aspects of life in Clarkston, Ga. and the surrounding area.”

Spears spent the following two hours randomly selecting questions from a box and asking the discussion group members for their responses.

What are the qualities of soccer that makes it suitable for refugees? Do you think other sports would bring refugees together? Why do think that Clarkston residents opposed the team?

These questions in turn stimulated discussions about diversity and the importance of accepting people of other cultures into the community. Several people mentioned how Riderwood is a diverse community with a welcoming atmosphere to people of all nationalities.

“(‘Outcasts United’) is inspiring and it crosses all age levels,” Spears said. “In a discussion group, it gives people an opportunity to express their feelings about people who speak another language and come from another cultural background, people who look different, people who sound different, people who have different ideas of life.”

She added that the book does an excellent job of showing the problems people face when they come to the United States and settle in a new area.

Andrea Lewis, the One Maryland One Book coordinator, said “Outcasts United” was chosen as this year’s book because community is the current theme of the program.

“We wanted a book that allowed for strong discussions about what brings us together and divides us within our communities,” she said.

One Maryland One Book is an annual event, held every September and October, in which all Maryland counties participate.

“One of the greatest benefits of the program is getting people together to talk, and in a broader sense, interact within their community,” Lewis said.

This was the first year that the Beltsville branch participated in the program, and Spears hopes to hold more events in the future.

“I think the program is fantastic,” she said. “It is great how as a group we can sit down and converse about different issues related to a book and give heartfelt reactions to it.”

Ilene Marsch, a Riderwood resident who lived in Beltsville for 25 years, is glad the One Maryland One Book program came to Riderwood through the efforts of the Beltsville Branch Library, a place she regularly visited for years.

“The program was excellent; the book is very good; the topic is timely,” said Marsch. “I am happy I read it and had a chance to discuss it with others.”

One Maryland One Book is a program of the Maryland Center for the Book at the Maryland Humanities Council. For more information on its upcoming events in Prince George’s County visit www.pcgmls.info.