And Tango Makes Three

I thought I'd start off this blog by writing about ALA's most challenged book for 2007. The number one book on ALA's list last year was And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. This award-winning picture book relates the true story of two male penguins in the Central Park zoo who fell in love and started a family, incubating an abandoned egg and raising the chick together. The book was challenged for "homosexuality, anti-family, and unsuited to age group" ("And Tango Makes Three" tops ALA's 2006 list of most challenged books).

And Tango Makes Three is a lovely book, sweet and charming. I found it personally to be very well suited to its intended audience (ages 4-8). The illustrations are wonderful and match the story perfectly. The book tells the story of its unusual penguin family, gently making the point that there are many kinds of families.

(It's almost impossible to discuss this issue and not include my personal opinions, but I will strive for objectivity in this blog as much as I'm able.)

The ALA website says: a challenge is "defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. Public libraries, schools and school libraries report the majority of challenges to OIF" (The Office for Intellectual Freedom).

In the case of And Tango Makes Three, some parents of elementary school students in Illinois wanted the book moved from the school library's children's section to a more "mature" section, and even suggested requiring parental permission before the book could be checked out. Jennifer Filyaw, the district superintendent, declined to move the book. "My feeling is that a library is to serve an entire population," Filyaw said. "It means you represent different families in a society -- different religions, different beliefs. That's the role of a school library." (boston.com/news)

In Southwick, Massachusetts, a school librarian reported that she feared losing her job after a reading of the book to a group of second-graders. Johanna Halbeisen, a library media teacher in her 11th year at Woodland Elementary School, received a letter from the principal threatening her with "suspension and/or termination of employment" if she didn't "refrain from disseminating information that supports alternative styles of living." While the principal did appear to back down from her threat of suspension/termination, she suggested that the book might be removed from the library shelves and relegated to a guidance counselor: "I’d love that to be available for counselors that work with families that maybe have this situation. But in this society here, in this town anyways… I don’t know if it’s our job to expose [children]." (schoollibraryjournal.com)

Halbeisen noted "the irony that her school’s Tango challenge has occurred in a state where marriage between same-sex couples has been legal since 2004."