The most outrageous things about And Tango Makes Three is why so many people are wanting to ban the book. Don’t they realize it’s based on a true story that happened in the late 1990s at the Central Park Zoo? People who have often tried to ban books don’t seem to have much intelligence.
Anyone can just Google the story of how Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the zoo, were spotting in 1998 doing mating rituals and then in 1999, they were trying to hatch a rock. The story made headlines and it was one of those things people e-mailed each other and the evening news included on the telecast. Eventually, after determing they were in fact trying to hatch a rock, zoo officials placed a second egg from another penguin couple with them.
And eventually, the egg hatched with a chick that was named Tango. They raised Tango for many years and seemed to be a happy family. But in real life, Roy and Silo drifted apart by 2005, the same year the book was published and Silo paired with a female penguin named Scrappy. But you can’t blame the writers Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, who are themselves a same-sex couple, for taken advantage of a cute story. People reading it will learn that families come in all shapes and sizes.
The book was on the top-banned listed from 2006 to 2008 and off and on throughout the 2010s. Even after same-sex marraige became law across the country in 2015, people still criticize it and don’t children learning it. Ironically, many children are living in homes with step-parents or single parents and even same-sex parents.
While the book is based on a true story, you got to hand it to the staff of the zoo for not trying to separate Roy an Silo when they observed them doing their mating calls. Many, many animals have been observed or studied to exhibit homosexual behavior. I, myself, have observed some male dogs try to hump other male dogs. George Carlin had a famous bit about his Maltese dog, Moe, humping his male cat, Vern. He would even use a picture he took of the interaction for his production company, Cablestuff Productions.
But aside from crude jokes, we’re even seeing animals today exhibiting behavior similar to Roy and Silo’s. Earlier this year, Murphy, a bald eagle at a bird sanctuary in Valley Park, Mo., was observed resting on a rock that he thought was an egg. So, when an young eaglet was born, they introduced it to Murphy’s habitat and he has been fostering the eaglet. Eagles, like penguins, share parenting duties.
And Tango Makes Three is very short story. It takes less than 10 minutes to read. But with young children being brought up in a world where same-sex marriage is now the normal, it’s a perfect way to teach them acceptance and intolerance. Roy and Silo just wanted to be happy. Who knows what would’ve happened to them if they were separated? It’s very likely if they were at a different zoo that would’ve happened.
No one is telling you what your child should read. If you don’t think they should read it, that’s your right as a parent. But you shouldn’t stop other parents and children from reading it.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 