So the Logos Hope returned to our shores recently. It is a boat full of books manned by a Christian organisation. Click here to see my visit via youtube video! I remember going when I was much younger. Our island doesn't currently have a public library so now it's even MORE of a thrill the idea of a boat being full of books, a library on the ocean, going shore to shore. Also, since I'm a Christian, it's double fold exciting!
I got a chance to take my little cousins who had never been on a boat before the experience.
The shy one wanted a puzzle book and pen, her little sister who is much more boisterous usually got them she informed me and she finishes them for her since her sister doesn't really like them. I hooked her up,
The loud one came to me shy and quiet with a Frozen book. When I asked her if she was sure she wanted this one she said in such a small voice 'I really love Elsa...' and in kind of hurt me because she said it as though she thought it wasn't okay for her to love the idea of a bold, brave, boisterous princess who takes on being different and fights alongside her sister for the good of their Kingdom. She's eight. What are we doing if our eight year olds feel like they have to grow up so fast that they are not allowed to want to read a story about a brave princess? I hooked her up.
There is quite an argument going on on my island about the need for and lack of a public library. Some say that because the people have rallied to create a modest community library in the capital so we don't need one. Some say libraries are archaic and no longer necessary.
When you out source help as an independent nation, go to some kind fat pocketed people and ask them for money to build your country up and they respond so you are saying the people have rallied and volunteered and created a library of their own so clearly they want it and other kind donors have helped build school libraries though the continuance and expansion of those are largely in the hands of the schools...when they ask so what have you done as a government then and now to ensure sustainability? What do you say I wonder...
Here is my take as an educator, a reader, a writer and a citizen. The largest countries in the world have libraries on each block to this day. Organisation put founding aside year after year to build libraries in developing countries to this day. When they took the oldest civilisations in the world, they burned their libraries and put a stop to their language.
Children must see reading made important by the people whose opinion they actually respect. If our government does not think it is important to set aside space for a NATIONAL PUBLIC LIBRARY why should they believe that literacy is important, if the relevant bodies wont even give it designated space?
The easiest way to see a people disappear is to halt their cataloguing of their history. To destroy their libraries and their language. Libraries are the resting place of language and literature. Literature is the ultimate catalogue of culture.
Peace. Love. If Not Now When?
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