The International Children’s Digital Library is providing free access to books, hoping to collect books from all cultures and languages in order to preserve a sense of family heritage and promote free access to information that extends beyond language barriers. It’s an awesome resource. Here is more explanation from their mission statement:
“A fundamental principle of the Foundation is that children and their families deserve to have access to the books of their culture, as well as the majority culture, regardless of where they live. According to a paper published in 2005 by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in preparation for the second meeting on the World Summit on the Information Society, ‘Denial to access to information in one’s mother tongue is equivalent to a denial of a human right.’ The report also concludes, ‘In terms of pedagogy, how do children learn best? In their mother tongue.’”
(via @bookbench)
