“And Tango Makes Three” By Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
Illustrated by Henry Cole
A children’s book based on a news story stirs controversy when that story is about homosexuality in animals, namely penguins.
The story of two male penguins who bring up a chick, which Richardson co-wrote with the playwright Peter Parnell, generated more heat than its authors perhaps anticipated. In 2006, it shot to the top of the American Library Association’s (ALA) list of most frequently challenged books as people across the country objected to the idea of such a tale being aimed at children of its target age group of between four and eight, provoking protests in Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Iowa and Indiana.