Posted March 10, 2006.

Librarian: Media Fictionalized Penguin Tango Flap

A week after media outlets around the world began reporting that a Missouri library system had moved And Tango Makes Three, a children’s picture book about two male penguins raising a baby together, Rolling Hills Consolidated Library Director Barbara Read was still fielding e-mails and phone calls about whether she should have restricted the title. But the book hasn’t been restricted at all, she responded over and over—just moved from children’s fiction to children’s nonfiction because it tells a true story.

Read told American Libraries that a widely circulated Associated Press report stemmed from the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press seeing in the February library board report Read’s correspondence with a Savannah couple, who had complained that Tango has a gay subtext. Read responded that she had decided to retain the book but move it to children’s nonfiction after having read it and consulted with zoologists about penguin behavior. The complainants thanked her for researching the issues, and acknowledged that while they disagreed with Read’s conclusions, they respected her opinion and that the reconsideration process made them “feel like valued patrons.”

In stark contrast to that exchange of civilities, Read told AL, “I have been accused of just about anything and everything, and called every name in the book” by people who’ve reacted to erroneous newspaper reports. “I’ve responded to many e-mails and received apologies,” she added.

The bottom line, Read said, is that Tango will remain accessible so “the book can say to kids in nonnuclear families that they—the kids—are okay regardless of how we feel about their parents’ life choices.”

Posted March 10, 2006; modified March 15, 2006.