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NOTE TO SELF: A FAMILY IS A FAMILY IS A FAMILY...SOME PEOPLE SEE SUBVERSIVE PLOTS EVERYWHERE, ESPECIALLY IN LOUDON

Given the fact that this is a place where there is reading matter covering a wide variety of subjects, one parent whose sensitivities were obviously jarred by the prospect of gay penguin parenting, has managed to get a book pulled from the library shelves. Some people see subversive plots at every turn, even within the pages of a children's book.

A children's book about two male penguins that hatch and parent a chick was pulled from library shelves in Loudoun County elementary schools this month after a parent complained that it promoted a gay agenda.

The decision by Superintendent Edgar B. Hatrick III led many parents and gay rights advocates to rush to the penguins' defence. Many say that the school system should not have allowed one complaint to limit children's literary choices. Some are calling for an overhaul of the book review policy. Besides, many say, what could be wrong with a book about penguins?

"The book is based on a true story . . . of what happens in the animal kingdom," said David Weintraub, director of Equality Loudoun, a gay rights organization. "It's about the joy of being part of a family. These penguins love each other. They take care of each other. The book, "And Tango Makes Three," by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, draws on the real-life story of Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in New York. It also appears to make a point about tolerance of alternative families.

As the book says, Roy and Silo were "a little bit different" than the boy and girl penguins who noticed each other and became couples. "Wherever Roy went, Silo went too." After they tried to hatch an egg-shaped rock together, a zookeeper gave them a fertilized egg to nurture. Experts say male chinstraps typically share incubation duties with females.The 2005 book, written with simple words and colorful pictures and dedicated "to penguin lovers everywhere," topped the American Library Association's list of banned or challenged books in 2006. Parents challenged the book in Shiloh, Ill., and Charlotte. Administrators in Charlotte initially yanked the book but later restored it, according to news reports.

Read the whole story here:

http://loudounextra.washingtonpost.com/news/2008/feb/16/tango/

Extra Information regarding penguins found on the Sea World site: http://www.seaworld.org/infobooks/Penguins/hatching.html:

"Care of the chicks
1 . Chicks require attentive parents for survival. Both parents feed the chick regurgitated food. Adults recognize and feed only their own chicks. Parents are able to identify their young by their chick's distinctive call (Marchant, 1990; Simpson, 1976).
2. Male emperor penguins exhibit a feature unique among penguins. If the chick hatches before the female returns, the male, despite his fasting, is able to produce and secrete a curdlike substance from his esophagus to feed the chick (Marchant, 1990; del Hoyo, et al., 1992) allowing for survival and growth for up to two weeks (Pr6vost and Vilter, 1963-1 Stonehouse, 1975).

I walked into work Monday morning and my boss asks if I saw the Masterpiece Theater production of Wind in the Willows. I had not. I had forgotten it. Oh, Entertainment Weekly. Why have you forsaken me?

Yes, I missed a Wind in the Willows production that featured Bob Hoskins as Badger. Reason alone for self-flagellation or something less dire? Well fortunately for the world at large, Educating Alice is reexamining not only this newest adaptation but also the book itself. I'd somehow never sensed the parallels between the characters mucking about and the British schoolboy tradition so acutely ingrained in the literature. Monica asks, justifiably, whether or not the book is even applicable today. Having grown up at the teat of the Michael Hague version (framed prints remain on the walls of my childhood home, I'll have you know) I've great affection for the text. The bizarre appearance of Pan mid-novel? Just makes the book all the sweeter to me. Plus you can shove the Hague version in the face of Percy Jackson fans and yell, "LOOK! PAN!," and watch them coo. Just don't follow that up with Jitterbug Perfume until they're at least 14.

Tangent. Returning.

If you don't care for random appearances of pagan gods, try the Inga Moore adaptation on for size. Yes, she abridged the text, but maybe in this day and age that's what the book requires. Besides, how can you turn down a cover image like this?

I encourage you to seek out Monica's thoughts on the program, if only to lend your own dulcet tones to her call for opinions on a variety of WITW related-subjects.