As a service to librarians, school
teachers, and parents, FREADOM is proud to launch this project to
provide reviews of book and web resources on Cuba by our team of
experts. In light of the legal and social battles in Florida this
summer over several books for children related to the dictatorship of
Fidel Castrro, it is vitally important that parents and educators know
what kind of quality -- and
substandard -- books are available for children and
young adults to learn about many topics related to Cuba.
FREADOM has assembled a team of
professional librarians who have read widely on Cuba and who understand
the issues children and young people want to learn about. On this page
are links to reviews of
books for both children and young
adults that can serve as a guide to librarians and teachers who are
looking to add good books to their collections and their teaching
resources. Our current members
will seek out
books that are balanced and those which speak candidly about the
realities of life as a serf under Castro's rule.
In addition to these reviews, FREADOM
is happy to announce
that we have begun a free, public Yahoo group forum for educators,
students and
parents to participate in. The online groups will carry reviews and
book suggestions by the public and will allow teachers and readers to
debate the
merits of the books reviewed, as well as the quality of the reviews.
While it is perhaps hard for any
author to describe life in a totalitarian society so that young
children can understand the facts (with Young Adults, this problem is
much less of a concern), we are familiar with the kind pro-Castro
propaganda that often circulates in the US and passes for knowlege.
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 to young people books that merely parrot pro-communist myths
about Castro, Che, and the conditions under which Cubans labor.
As the head of Florid'a ACLU said, in
response to the misguided effort to keep the abysmal book "Vamos A
Cuba,"
off school library shelves, the answer to bad books is not censorship,
but more and better books.
We at FREADOM are proud to provide
this forum for our colleagues and fellow citizens and as time goes by
we expect to add more experts to our list of reviewers, especially when
we are able to start a separate section on reviews of books about Cuba
for adults. Please visit the Yahoo group in order to read about other
books and to share your opinions on good books, or on horrendous books.
School boards should not be wasting money on books that repeat the lies
of Fidel Castro, especially when there are quality resources available
that will serve the educational needs of our children well.
In Cuba, no such public or independent
library efforts are allowed to
exist, and the books that children read in the classroom are subject to
a censorship that is total. There are no courts to appeal Communist
Party decisions to, no free press to protest the banning and burning of
books, and no redress for citizens whose voices are silenced and whose
dreams are damned if they don’t fit in with Fidel’s iron plans.