Every year as part of Freedom To Read Week, the Calgary Committee chooses to feature a book that has been challenged in some way. This year, the book is And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson. On behalf of the Freedom To Read Week Committee, the following is a review of this year's challenged book.

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson

By Anne Jayne, Calgary Freedom to Read Week Committee

The American Library Association tracks challenged books and releases a Top Ten list every year. ALA registers a challenge when someone files a formal, written complaint with a library or school, requesting that a book be removed because of content or appropriateness.

Think that the top place on the list goes to some X-rated novel? Think again. The book that has been #1 on the Top Ten list of most challenged books for 2006, 2007, and 2008 is a children’s picture book: And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, illustrated by Henry Cole (Simon and Schuster, 2005).

The book is based on a true story of Chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York. The zookeepers noticed that a particular penguin couple had laid two eggs. Unfortunately, in previous years, this pair had failed to hatch two eggs. To save the second egg, the zookeepers placed it in a nest that had been created by two male penguins, Roy and Silo, who were inseparable companions. These two successfully incubated the egg and then raised the chick, Tango.

The behaviour of the male penguins is not all that mysterious. Chinstrap penguins reside in Antarctica and other cold regions of the world. Adult penguins, male and female, take turns incubating eggs and caring for chicks.

The reasons given by the complainants for requesting removal of the book: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group.

Many of those who object to the book see it as having a political or social agenda to promote homosexual marriage and adoption of children. They say that the traditional family is undermined by the presentation of families in any alternative form, including families with gay or lesbian parents.

At least one reader who posted a review on Amazon objected to the portrayal of animals kept in captivity in a zoo. However, apparently anti-zoo adults did not file complaints calling for the removal of the book from libraries on that ground.

On the other hand, And Tango Makes Three has won a number of national book awards in the United States, including the ASPCA’s Henry Bergh Award and the American Library Association’s Notable Children’s Book of 2006.

And Tango Makes Three is a also a popular book, based on brisk sales since 2005.

In book reviews online, including Amazon reviews, readers who like the book comment on the positive themes that they saw in the story. The importance of love in the creation of a happy family is often noted. Some readers emphasize the participation of all adult penguins in caring for eggs and chicks, and note the similarity to the adage that “it takes a village to raise a child.” Others see the book as a positive way to help children understand and accept families that are different from their own. And, of course, this book has been popular with families with gay or lesbian parents.

In the end, however, readers do not have to agree on whether the book is good or bad. All of us are free to choose books for ourselves and our children that suit us, and we may do so for any reason that we wish.

It is a different story when people call for the removal of a book from a library or school because it is, in their opinion, such a bad book. Whenever that happens, then one person, or a small group, makes the decision for everybody else.

And that fundamentally violates the right of each of us to decide for ourselves what to read, and what not to read.