Contents of blog copyright Book Dragon's Lair 2009-2023
I've been gone a while. I started reading fanfiction to escape and I got sucked in an abyss.

I have no idea if someone else is hosting similar challenges. I just grabbed some of what I have hosted before.

Here's to a happy year of great reading
Jan2023: Not much has changed. Writing a fanfiction now O_o as well as reading but I bought 7 new books in December and hope to get those read soon. Crossing fingers about adding challenges (late!)

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Homosexuality: And Tango makes Three

And Tango Makes Three tops the ALA's 2006 Most Challenged Book List. Gee, the book was published in April of 2005 so it didn't take long at all for people to get in an uproar. The problem? Homosexuality.

This is a 32-page picture book about a real-life happening. How can you possibly debate the validity of the book when it is FACT? I like what the school librarian did at my children's elementary school. She filed it under "Penguin" instead of with the rest of the picture books. That way some 5-year-old's parents wouldn't get blind-sided with a conversation before they're ready for it but a kid interested in penguins would have access to it.

The book also made #4 on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009. The Harry Potter series was #1.


And Tango makes Three
by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
April 26, 2005
32 pages

reading level: ages 4 - 8

Two male penguins in New York City Central Park Zoo hatch an egg. Yes, two males. The book is cute but simplistic. It is a "picture book" geared for kindergarten and I can see why some parent's are in an uproar. I also don't see what the big deal is. Male and female Chintrap penguins look the same so if you see a couple, there is no way to tell it is male/male. The two boys did all the mating rituals that the other couples did, there is no way the zookeeper could have been mistaken.

You can only assume that the pair stayed together through more than one breeding season, otherwise why would they try to hatch a rock. Only after seeing the boys try this, did the zookeeper help. He gave the pair an unhatched egg from another couple that did not do well when taking care of two eggs. He DID NOT take another couple's egg from them, but instead relieved them of having to care for two eggs and possibly losing both.

Full color, short & simplistic, looks to be a bit bigger then legal size paper. I don't know what kind of media happened during/after the hatching, but really, no matter what your view on this is, the penguins are together, the zookeeper did a good thing and baby Tango survived when maybe she would not have. We should not throw away our children (the egg) when there is another option for them.


copyright Book Dragon's Lair 2009-2011

1 comment:

Petrea Burchard said...

I love that you posted about this. I came across it in my research about Banned books week and found it charming.

I love Banned Books Week. Some of the books don't surprise me, but it's amazing what innocent things people find threatening.

Disclaimer

In accordance to the FTC guidelines, I must state that I make no monetary gains from my reviews or endorsements here on Book Dragon's Lair. All books I review are either borrowed, purchased by me, given as a gift, won in some kind of contest, or received in exchange for an honest review.