Penguin tale (penguin family with two dads) tops list of `challenged' books

[marmar]

from AP, via Yahoo!:



Penguin tale tops list of `challenged' books
By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer
Tue May 6, 3:42 PM ET



NEW YORK - A children's story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the public objects to the most.

"And Tango Makes Three," released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most "challenged" book in public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.

"The complaints are that young children will believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle that is acceptable. The people complaining, of course, don't agree with that," Judith Krug, director of the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom, told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

The ALA defines a "challenge" as a "formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness."

Other books on the ALA's top 10 list include Maya Angelou's memoir "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," in which the author writes of being raped as a young girl; Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," long attacked for alleged racism; and Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass," an anti-religious work in which a former nun says: "The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake."

Pullman's novel, released in 1996, received new attention last year because of the film version starring Nicole Kidman.

Overall, the number of reported library challenges dropped from 546 in 2006 to 420 last year, well below the mid-1990s, when complaints topped 750. For every challenge listed, about four to five go unreported, the library association estimates. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080506/ap_en_ot/challenged_books

[canis_lupus]

1. It's a sign of the end times, I tell ya!

I just saw a cartoon with Bugs Bunny WEARING A DRESS!!!! And then he KISSED Elmer Fudd!!!!

Not only that, but did ya catch the reference to "lost boys" in Peter Pan? And what's up with the name "Peter Pan" anyway? It sounds like some sort of fancy camera work in one of those porn movies!

I'm telling ya ... that wicked homo-seck-shul agenda is all around us! Oh Lordy, come rapture us away!

(signed)
The entire religious right who have nothing better to do than worry whether Bert and Ernie are playing hide-the-sausage on Sesame Street
:crazy:

[Chulanowa]

2. Nevermind that penguins have no issue with homosexuality

Anyone remember the couple in Japan? :)

Huckleberry Finn does contain racism - and it portrayed that racism in a negative light. The oft-cited term causing the basis for racism, "Nigger Jim" was never in the book but was rather from Albert Paine's biography of Samuel Clemens.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography, and a damn powerful one at that.

It amazes me that parents seem to want their kids to have access to nothing of literary value. My mother practically made me read all this stuff. Pretty soon all that's going to be in school libraries are stacks of Pokémon cards. Fucking shameful.

[noonwitch]

3. It's always the same books, with recent ones addition

They've been trying to get Huckleberry Finn banned since I was in school-same with I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings and even The Diary Of Anne Frank.

5th graders don't read Maya Angelou, but high schoolers should be able to.

[Sabriel]

4. The penguin book is non-fiction, censorship fans.

Are we going after the truth, too?

You should stick to getting subs fired for "wizardry."