Vamos a Cuba
I was listening to NPR this morning on my way to work, and I heard a story about a school district in Miami that wants to ban a book called "Vamos a Cuba" or "Let's Visit Cuba". This is a colorful picture book in a series covering many countries, aimed at children from ages 7-10 years. As the name implies, it tells the story of a visit to Cuba.
NPR played part of an interview with one of the parents who was demanding that the book be pulled from the school district's libraries. Through a translator, he said that he was a Cuban exile, and that the book didn't speak at all of the horrors he had faced under his country's communist regime.
Now, I'm no expert, but that doesn't seem like fodder for a children's picture book. I can't imagine living in a world where the second graders' reading group uses a book, which instead of saying things like, "In Cuba, people eat, work, and play just like they do here", details the ravages of war. They'll find out eventually, but let's let them have their childhoods. We don't need our nation's children reading "Gary, The Oil Rig Takes On Foreign Oil" or "Child Labor, It Could Have Been You". If the point were to scare the bajeezes out of elementary school children, I would be all about changing it.
I understand that the book leaves out details, but I don't believe the point of the book is to teach history. As I said, it's one of a series of many books covering many countries. Much of the information is aimed at understanding that we all have many things in common, despite what country we are from.
Angry parents in Miami are asking the school to breech laws of free speech by banning a book... a book which is actually trying to teach us all how to understand other points of view and see similarities. A book that, essentially, preaches peacefulness. When people start banning books to "protect the children", I often wonder how much they're actually thinking about "the children" and how much of it is for their own agendas. I find the whole thing disturbing.
Note: I just went to the Amazon.com link, and discovered that people are having this same debate via the site's book review section!
NPR played part of an interview with one of the parents who was demanding that the book be pulled from the school district's libraries. Through a translator, he said that he was a Cuban exile, and that the book didn't speak at all of the horrors he had faced under his country's communist regime.
Now, I'm no expert, but that doesn't seem like fodder for a children's picture book. I can't imagine living in a world where the second graders' reading group uses a book, which instead of saying things like, "In Cuba, people eat, work, and play just like they do here", details the ravages of war. They'll find out eventually, but let's let them have their childhoods. We don't need our nation's children reading "Gary, The Oil Rig Takes On Foreign Oil" or "Child Labor, It Could Have Been You". If the point were to scare the bajeezes out of elementary school children, I would be all about changing it.
I understand that the book leaves out details, but I don't believe the point of the book is to teach history. As I said, it's one of a series of many books covering many countries. Much of the information is aimed at understanding that we all have many things in common, despite what country we are from.
Angry parents in Miami are asking the school to breech laws of free speech by banning a book... a book which is actually trying to teach us all how to understand other points of view and see similarities. A book that, essentially, preaches peacefulness. When people start banning books to "protect the children", I often wonder how much they're actually thinking about "the children" and how much of it is for their own agendas. I find the whole thing disturbing.
Note: I just went to the Amazon.com link, and discovered that people are having this same debate via the site's book review section!
posted by Bert at 2:51 PM
2 Comments:
LOL. You know, as a parent I might buy such a series of books to pull out when my kids are acting spoiled. "Human Trafficking: Why You're Lucky to Be In Your Own Room So Shut Up and Go to Sleep." And how about, "The Day My Family Met the Khmer Rouge"?
It brings back memories of a report I did on Burma back in 7th grade. None of the kid-friendly books I used for research said anything about the sad history of that part of the world, much less the sad present.
I don't agree with banning books, in general. Last year, in our district, our resource teacher, who is quite young, wanted to read a book to her students about "non-traditional families". In the book, the non-traditional family consisted of two male penguins and a child penguin. This is because diversity is supposedly celebrated in our learning community. Apparently that's not the case, as she was asked by our principal not to read the book to her students. Or consider the cases in Texas where certain "health" textbooks are purchased by school districts only after parent approval has been received. The aim was that abstinence be the only method of birth control taught in their health ed series. Guess which state has a high % of teen pregnancies? Interesting post, but it makes me sad when books are protested. :-/
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