The South Florida Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet is at it again. How else to explain the events that brought Miami resident Dalila Rodriguez together with a copy of Vamos a Cuba? Seems Ms. Rodriguez, a Cuban émigré--er, exile--removed the book from her son's school library and is refusing to return it because, she contends, it soft-pedals life on Fidel's Fantasy Island. The School Board had itself previously banned the book, but held off when the ACLU challenged its action. "[The school board] is leaving us in legal limbo" says Rodriguez, "so we're leaving them in limbo, too." For now the book is safely inside her "lockbox," where it shall remain. "It had some educational facts," she notes, "but it's still erroneous." We empathize with Ms. Rodriguez and her fellow Cuban exiles, but this form of book "borrowing" is just as bad as book banning. And if it catches on with other interest groups, we fear that library shelves across America will soon be barren. (Especially the biology section.)
"Cuban mom raids school library," by Tania de Luzuriaga, Miami Herald, February 22, 2007. (Print edition only)