Julia M. OBrien

My "What's your Earliest Memory of a Bible Story?" poll has been up for 6 weeks.  As of today 75 people voted.  Thanks for all who joined in.

Since I'm not a trained poll-crafter, I'm not sure if the results really provide fresh data or are skewed by my selection of stories. But the winners of the poll didn't surprise me.

The 40-year anniversary of the moon walk of Apollo 11 has me nostalgic.  I remember where I was and where I was headed on the evening of July 20, 1969.

It was the first night of a month-long, cross-country family car trip.  My father, who loved to travel, hatched the idea and planned the details with the help of AAA.  He and my mom bought a station wagon, topped it with a Sears luggage carrier, packed up all four kids, and headed out from North Carolina to California.  I was 11 at the time.

I ended my last post with a research question:  how much religion would I see reflected in the book/magazine section of my suburban supermarket?

I just read an article about the huge success of the children's book series The Little Golden Books. According to an article by Claudia Anderson, Simon and Schuster first published the books in 1942, but their real success came when they hit the grocery stores.

In 1947, the Little Goldens appeared in supermarkets. Available and affordable in towns too small to have a bookstore, they democratized quality picture books for children. By 1959, more than 150 titles had sold over a million copies each. . .The Poky Little Puppy, illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren, was on its way to becoming the best-selling English-language children's picture book of all time.

Thinking about the role of the grocery store in disseminating one kind of literature got me thinking about its role in the religious lives of the people whom it serves.