By Michael Leppert
The Indiana Citizen
February 26, 2025
There are so many stars and influencers surrounding us these days, it’s difficult for the uncool to keep up. I don’t know exactly when I crossed over into that territory, but I’m guessing it was shortly after my first son was born. He celebrated his 30th birthday this month.
Back when I was cool, reading was not among the reasons. Now, it might be the coolest thing I do.
In my youth, Dolly Parton wasn’t cool. She was originally a country and bluegrass musician, which in the world of my youth, was cool’s opposite. But after her singing voice slowly became embedded in the fabric of America, her cultural voice followed. That voice is cool as it gets.
Parton started the Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county in East Tennessee, not far from my childhood home. The program delivers one age-appropriate book per month to children five-years old and younger. To recipients, the books arrive via U.S. Mail, free of charge. Do the math. That’s as many as 60 books in a personal library of each participating child. There is no catch, no burden, no problem.
But as the uncool know so well, nothing is truly free. Books cost money, and thirty years since the program started in one county, it is now available in five countries and gives millions of free books each month to children around the world. It’s an intricate operation, involving a long list of operational and funding partners to make it all happen.
Indiana is one of 21 statewide partners in the U.S., though the partnership is now threatened by the Indiana House’s recently passed budget. In 2023, the legislature approved a $6 million expenditure in its budget for the program. That’s a budget item big enough to notice, and small enough that cutting it can’t possibly be celebrated. I am unaware of any public discussion about discontinuing the appropriation during the first half of this year’s legislative session.
So, when the House passed its budget last week and the funding was surprisingly gone, the silence about it ended. I learned about it first from the national media. “We are hopeful that Gov. (Mike) Braun and the Indiana legislature will continue this vital investment by restoring the state’s funding match for local Imagination Library programs,” Jeff Conyers, president of the Dollywood foundation, said in a statement to the Daily Beast.
Conyers was not hysterical about it. He was cool. And while Braun responded quickly to the call out coming from an organization with a big name on it, I found the response to be less than cool, even cold.
As reported by the Indianapolis Star, Braun’s office responded that First Lady Maureen Braun will work with philanthropic partners and consult with state leadership to identify funding opportunities for the program. The First Lady added, “Indiana has many strong community partners and I am confident we will collaborate on a solution that grows children’s love of reading.”
That’s a feel good response to a potentially damaging story that would otherwise sound like Indiana doesn’t think books are important. The announcement from the Braun administration is designed to create the appearance that it actually does care. The problem is that it is also an announcement that the administration will not be advocating for the budget item to be restored.
It’s classic spin. And after only one lap on that merry-go-round, it is clear it will end right where this saga started: with the budget item dead, and Indiana out of the cool kids’ club.
The South Bend Tribune reported on the cut, and again, it appears people who should have been engaged on the issue simply weren’t. Rep. Dale Devon, R-Granger, told the Tribune that he doesn’t know why the funding was left out of the budget. He is the chair of the House Family, Children and Human Affairs Committee, and he voted in favor of the cut. He added, “Anything we can do to help kids be a success in life is a positive.”
Cool.
Nationally, wherever there is a book ban being pursued, Republicans are leading it. It’s a well-documented national trend. Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith led a “reshelving” initiative as the chairman of the Hamilton East Library Board in 2022. That fight engaged Indiana’s greatest living author, John Green. His classic book, “The Fault in Our Stars” was a high-profile target of Beckwith’s hostility toward literature. The controversy led to Beckwith’s resignation in January of 2024.
Cool. And I’m talking about the resignation part there.
This is an easy one, Indiana. Do we want our kids to read or don’t we? Imagine if we didn’t and imagine where that leads. I can’t imagine anything cool about that.
Michael Leppert is an author, educator and a communication consultant in Indianapolis. He writes about government, politics and culture at MichaelLeppert.com.The views and opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Indiana Citizen or any other affiliated organization.
