Librarian Fired for Defending Kid Who “Hogs” Reading Contest by…um…READING

Lita Casey worked as an aide at the Hudson Falls Free Library for 28 years. Last week she was fired from her job after standing up for a child who loves to read.

Tyler Weaver is a 9-year-old boy who has participated in the summer reading contest at the library for the past five years.  Tyler read 63 books during his six week summer vacation – and has read a total of 373 books in the last five years.  He has won the library’s top reader contest every year since he was in kindergarten.

Tyler’s mother Katie was so proud of her son that she contacted a local newspaper to share his story.

The newspaper contacted the Hudson Falls Public Library for comment and found that the library director, Marie Gandron, didn’t share Katie’s enthusiasm over Tyler’s accomplishment.

Gandron wanted to change the rules to end the child’s winning streak.  She reportedly said the boy “hogs” the contest and should “step aside” and give another child a chance to win.  “Other kids quit because they can’t keep up,” Gandron said.

Instead of making it a competition, the director would like to pull the winner’s name out of a hat – an idea Casey called “ridiculous”.  She library board member Michael Herman to complain:

“My feeling is you work, you get it. That’s just the way it is in anything. My granddaughter started working on track in grade school and ended up being a national champ. Should she have backed off and said, ‘No, somebody else should win?’ I told her (Gandron), but she said it’s not a contest, it’s the reading club and everybody should get a chance,” Casey told the Post Star in an Aug. 15 article.

To participate in the contest,  children are required to read books at their grade level and take an librarian-administered quiz to ensure they actually read the books.

Casey said she would have spoken up about Gandron’s plans no matter what.

“The reason why I went to bat for him was that it doesn’t seem right.  Everything in life you’ve got to work for it if you want it,” Casey said.  “I don’t think he cares about the prizes. He just wants to read and he wants to know that he read the most,” she said.

“It wasn’t because it was Tyler. I had heard from someone else that she planned the change, and I said ‘That’s not right, you don’t penalize a child for reading,’” Casey said.

Tyler isn’t happy about the changes Gandron proposed either:

“She says for every ten books, you get to put your name on a slip,” Tyler told NEWS10. “But if some kid just reads ten books and wins it’s not fair. He didn’t put enough effort into it. How would it even be a contest if you just picked a name out of a hat?”

Charlie Koznick, host of The Koz Report, agrees:

And the pattern of the dumbing down of  our children continues.  If you are good at something, you must be stopped.  America’s “everyone gets a trophy” syndrome is leading to an ever-growing epidemic of narcissism and self-entitlement.

A conversation between two characters in the animated film The Incredibles comes to mind:

Dash: You always say ‘Do your best’, but you don’t really mean it. Why can’t I do the best that I can do?

Helen: Right now, honey, the world just wants us to fit in, and to fit in, we gotta be like everyone else.

Dash: But Dad always said our powers were nothing to be ashamed of, our powers made us special.

Helen: Everyone’s special, Dash.

Dash: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is.

Delivered by The Daily Sheeple

Contributed by Lily Dane of The Daily Sheeple.

Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple. Her goal is to help people to “Wake the Flock Up!”