A children’s book about penguins at the Central Park Zoo seems an unlikely candidate for the country’s most frequently challenged book – unless, of course, you take the penguins’ gender into consideration.
“And Tango Makes Three,” written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, is the true story of two adult male penguins who hatched a baby together. Since its publication in 2005, the book has inspired ongoing controversy and earned the top spot on the American Library Association list of the ten most frequently challenged books in 2007, 2008, 2009…and now again in 2011.
The term “challenge” in this instance is defined according to the American Library Association as “a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be restricted or removed because of its content or appropriateness.” The annual list is based on the 400-550 complaints received and filed by the Office for Intellectual Freedom.
Richardson and Parnell’s book has inspired challenges concerning what some saw as homosexual undertones in the story of Roy and Silo, the two male penguins who worked together to hatch and raise a baby penguin. Richardson explained that the book was intended “to teach children about same-sex parent families,” but insists that “it’s no more an argument in favor of human gay relationships than it is a call for children to swallow their fish whole or sleep on rocks.”
“And Tango Makes Three” is joined this year by “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” a young adult fiction work by Sherman Alexie that came in at number two on the ALA’s list.
