Penguin Love

Last night my father held up the book he just read to my six-year-old brother and said: "This is an interesting book."

The book, called And Tango Makes Three, is about two male penguins who raise a baby penguin together. An egg was placed in the nest the two had made by the zoo keeper after he noticed the penguins were trying to hatch a rock. The last page of the book states the book is based on two real-life penguins in the Central Park Zoo.

In May of '07, a librarian from Southwick, MA told the School Library Journal she felt her job was threatened after reading the book to a group of elementary age children. In November of 2006, parents in Chicago wanted the book banned from the shelves.

It's understandable parents would feel uneasy about a subject such as this being showcased their children at such a young age. It is a sensitive and difficult subject to talk about. But we're getting to a point, a child being raised by a same sex couple is becoming more frequent.

Same sex couples can provide the same loving environment for a child that heterosexual parents do, and this book displays that.

These instances of people wanting the book banned show that some people are not fully adapt to the idea of same sex couples. What a book like this can do is make others more open to the idea and most of all, make members of families with same sex parents feel accepted by society.