Local author with a national reputation, John Green, has inserted himself into the controversy over the Hamilton East Library’s policy of reviewing every young adult book in the collection. The library board recently voted to “pause” the implementation of that policy, at least for now.
Nonetheless, author Green has granted an interview to Indianapolis Star reporter Rachel Fradette and has a lot to say. Green argues this entire situation could have easily been avoided.
“We never would have been in this situation if the majority of the board had listened to librarians and their constituents,” Green tells reporter Fradette. “There were people sounding the alarm about this long before I did. For whatever reason my sounding the alarm got a lot of attention.”
Green had criticism for library board member Ray Maddalone for reading a brief passage from his book “The Fault In Our Stars.” He expressed a dislike for what he describes as reading his work “out of context.”
in other comments he made during the interview:
–He is happy librarians have kept their jobs at the Hamilton East Libraries (in Noblesville and Fishers)
–His books are “not pornography” and he is confident other books taken from the Young Adult collection in the library are not pornography.
–He does view the Hamilton East Library policy as censorship.
Because he mentions Fishers specifically, here is the final paragraph Green provides to reporter Rachel Fradette:
“I love Indianapolis. I love Central Indiana. And I love Fishers … I really want people outside of Indiana to see the Indiana I see … One of the points I tried to make in my initial letter because I understand the priorities of the government in a town like Fishers is that this is really bad for business. It’s really bad for students. It’s really bad for everything that you’re trying to celebrate about what makes Central Indiana cool.”
You can read the story at this link (NOTE: You must be an IndyStar subscriber to access this story. Online subscriptions are very inexpensive. Let me say this again – SUBSCRIBE TO YOUR LOCAL MEDIA!)
A massive reset on how this so called “board of directors” needs to be initiated at this time. What has worked for some time, has broken down. The autocrats who run the county are assigning theocrats to a secular function of government –and that’s just wrong.
For a tax driven function, I see a heck of a lot of pushing of personal agendas that pertain to one view only — and I think that ‘we the people’ need to have more of a say in who is operating the library. HSE and Noblesville school districts might currently have the ‘right’ to assign members, they should no longer have that say. (They ought to be focusing in getting our school districts to the best overall public education available…not sports, Abrahamic mythological views, or fashionista rule settings.)
I’d propose that the board be 1/3 Noblesville assigned, 1/3 HSE assigned, and 1/3 elected –and 1/3 of the board is rotated out every congressional election cycle.
This silliness is part of why this flaming extrovert is rapidly retreating to hermit status.