Walter Skold writes “PRESS RELEASE & WEB SERVICE
http://www.4freadom.org/CRKPrR.html
Librarians Launch Two New Services
To Recommend Cuba Books for the Young
Includes Open Forum for Librarians, Students and Parents
October 1, 2006 — Two new book review and online discussion groups
have been launched for teachers and students that will highlight the best
books and resources on Cuba for young people.
“As a way to celebrate banned books weeks all year we are proud to lauch
both Cuba4Kids and YACUBA,” said Walter Skold, the co-chair of FREADOM,
the library group which is sponsoring the new project.
Walter Skold writes “PRESS RELEASE & WEB SERVICE
http://www.4freadom.org/CRKPrR.html
Librarians Launch Two New Services
To Recommend Cuba Books for the Young
Includes Open Forum for Librarians, Students and Parents
October 1, 2006 — Two new book review and online discussion groups
have been launched for teachers and students that will highlight the best
books and resources on Cuba for young people.
“As a way to celebrate banned books weeks all year we are proud to lauch
both Cuba4Kids and YACUBA,” said Walter Skold, the co-chair of FREADOM,
the library group which is sponsoring the new project.
“In light of the legal and social battles in Florida recently over several
books for children, it is important that parents and educators know what
kind of quality — and substandard — publications are available,” said
Skold,”And to have an open forum where these resources can be discussed.”
“We agree with the position of the Florida ACLU that the answer to
inferior books is more and better books, not banning,” he added.
Along with a service of professional reviews on the FREADOM website, the
group has started the Cuba4Kids and YACUBA Yahoo groups where students,
teachers, and parents can post their own reviews and have a dialogue with
others who recommended materials.
“We are proud to provide a professional service that promotes free speech
and expands the national debate over the issue of what our kids learn about
the tyranny of Fidel Castro in schools,” said Skold.
“In Cuba, there is no independent library association, no open debate on the
Internet about censorship, and the books that children read in the classroom
are subject to total control by the ruling Party,” he added, “With
dissenting parents or elected school boards non-existent.”
FREADOM has assembled a team of professional librarians who have read
widely on Cuba and who understand the issues children and young people
need and want to learn about.
They also understand that it takes more than pictures of smiling children
to make a good children’s or young adult book or webpage.
“While it is an intellectual freedom to publish all sorts of views on
Castro’s dictatorship, it is also an academic crime for teachers to
recommend books that merely parrot pro-communist myths about Castro, Che,
and the conditions under which Cubans labor,” Skold added.
FREADOM maintains there are plenty of excellent books and web resources
available for children and young adults that are balanced and accurate, and
don’t read like Fidel dictated them to someone in his obedient writer’s
union.
“Children like to see pictures of other children smiling, and that is a
beauty of life, but we also teach our children not to lie,” said Skold.
“Therefore, books that consistently misrepresent history (as opposed to an
author making a mistake here and there), are poorly researched, or which
merely repeat vapid Castro mythologies should not see the light
of elementary school collections.”
“Such prudent choices are NOT acts of censorship,” said Skold. “They are
and exercise of wisdom and responsibility in book selection.”
The first few reviews have been added to the FREADOM website and the Yahoo
groups are ready for adults and young people to begin posting their own
reviews.
FREADOM is a 3-year old library group with an emphasis on Cuba that
advocates for human rights and the freedom to read. The group hopes to
solicit reviews from famous Cuban-American writers in the ongoing effort
to celebrate literature and have open debate regarding what kids read
about Cuba.
Parents, students, and teachers are welcome to vistit the new discussion
groups and FREADOM’S page of professional reviews:
YACUBA — http://groups.yahoo.com/group/YACUBA/
Cuba4Kids — http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Cuba4Kids/
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