The first thing I need to say is that the library at Bossard Elementary School just got its book back.

The second thing I need to say is, give me a break!

Maybe you heard this story last week: Dalila Rodriguez, of the so-called Concerned Cuban Parents Committee, was browsing in the library of Norma Butler Bossard Elementary in Miami when she ran across a book that offended her. She felt it painted an inaccurately rosy picture of life in Cuba.

Concerned Cuban Parents is in the business of being offended by children’s books. Last year, the group pressed the school board into going to court – the case is ongoing – to remove two other titles that hurt the tender eyes of its members. They did this even though the board’s lawyer warned the case could not be won because the board’s position violated its own rules and multiple legal precedents.

But going through channels wasn’t enough for Rodriguez. This latest book, “Discovering Cultures, Cuba,” outraged her. She felt it romanticized life on the island. She felt children ought not see it. So she stole it. Checked it out of the library, kept it past its return date and announced she has no intention of ever returning it.

Rodriguez trumpeted all this in an interview with my Miami Herald colleague, Tania deLuzuriaga. A check by deLuzuriaga found that a suspiciously high number of controversial books about Cuba are overdue at other South Florida libraries, suggesting this might be part of a campaign by Concerned Cuban Parents to win by surreptitious means what it has not been able to win in court.

“It’s not censoring,” Rodriguez said. “It’s protecting our children from lies.”

But of course, it is censoring and I’d love to be able to report that the fact Bossard Elementary just got its book back means Rodriguez has belatedly realized this and repented. What it actually means is that I had a copy of the book shipped to the school at my expense. I read online where a group called Friends of Cuban Libraries has done the same thing.

Like me, they’ve probably had it with self-appointed censors. Between a guy being arrested in 2003 for wearing a “Give Peace A Chance” T-shirt to reporters having tape recorders seized and erased at a 2004 speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, I wonder if anybody takes fifth-grade civics anymore.

Particularly among some within South Florida’s Cuban-American community, too many of whom behave as if hating Fidel Castro is license to do any dumb thing that flits into their heads. Using that hatred as justification, some have committed assault, banned magazines, blocked freeways and spent tens of thousands of public dollars pursuing constitutionally illiterate positions in court.

Now, Dalila Rodriguez steals a book. It is an offensive book, she says, citing a line that says many Cubans immigrated to Florida when Castro took power in 1959. Cubans “immigrated” to Florida the way you “immigrate” to the front lawn when your house in on fire, so her ire is understandable.

Her theft is not. Do we all get to remove from the library any book that hurts our feelings? Pretty soon you wouldn’t have a library – just a room full of empty shelves.

I’m going to make a promise, then: For as long as Rodriguez and her confederates want to keep stealing Bossard Elementary’s copy of “Discovering Cultures, Cuba,” I’ll keep replacing it. Let me hear the book has disappeared and a new copy is on its way as fast as amazon.com can get it there.

If you agree that censorship by theft is wrong, dear reader, maybe you’ll call Miami-Dade County Schools and offer one-time replacement of any book stolen for political reasons. Or maybe you’ll call Concerned Cuban Parents at 305-345-4927 and let them know how you feel about self-righteous book thieves.

Speaking of whom, here’s a final word for Dalila Rodriguez:

Your turn.

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a columnist for The Miami Herald. His e-mail address is: lpitts@miamiherald.com.

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