Valletta council wanted book aimed at children

I refer to Tony Cutajar’s letter Ignorance Of Heritage (November 3), where he claimed I turned down the publication of his book, and would like to clarify a few points.

The Valletta local council, given its limited resources, is working hard to educate the children of Valletta in collaboration with local schools and several other entities. In fact, it is not by coincidence that we’ve been organising free summer schools, free after-school classes, free trips abroad, etc. for the past five years. Hundreds of children from the city benefited from the council’s work and we intend to do even more.

Three years ago, Mr Cutajar approached me with his book. This was not the first such proposal that we received, therefore, we have to be very selective, especially since we don’t have extra cash. In our conversations, I explained to Mr Cutajar that we don’t want to publish a book for the sake of publishing but we want the book to be a learning tool for children or adults.

Contrary to what Mr Cutajar is claiming in his letter, his book was not aimed at children but at the public in general. Children would not only find it hard to read but it also lacked visual appeal.

So the council decided not to publish his book and, in fact, a few months later, we produced a book aimed specifically at children. Our book was distributed to all the children of Valletta free of charge.

On the other hand, Mr Cutajar’s book was not polished enough to be sold to adults. When we suggested to Mr Cutajar the production of a quality publication aimed at adults (and which costs more than €2,000), he never got back to us. This is a pity because, at the moment, we’re working to publish a quality publication about Valletta aimed at the public.

So contrary to Mr Cutajar’s claims, we actually spent more than €2,000 for the benefit of our heritage but we spent them on quality products that help us educate both our children and the public.