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).
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Blog: NOTE TO MYSELF (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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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.
The Michael Hague edition?!
With all due respect, Fuse, three little words:
Ernest Howard Shepard!
I never said my 5-year-old self had taste. I grew up during the Hagueification of all the classics. Wizard of Oz. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Honestly, you couldn't buy a classic without running into that guy.
That said, we of course had the Shepard in the house as well. My mom enjoyed showing me the little pen-and-ink of Mole leaping joyfully into the sky post-Spring cleaning.
You see? The book sticks with you. I will note that of Hague's work, his "Wind in the Willows" is his best. Very Rackham.
How about just...Rackham?
http://www.geocities.com/willowind_dals/willows.html
By the way, for those who want more (being a purist I haven't read them) there are the William Horwood "sequels": The Willows in Winter, Toad Triumphant, and The Willows and Beyond.
Not to be a pain, but badger was actually played by Bob Hoskins. And the whole production was really nice. Toad was hysterical.
So does the world need another adaptation of WITW? Maybe a graphic novel?
There actually _is_ a graphic novel (or rather, four in a series) of WITW, done by Michel Plessix. They're really quite good and go out like mad at my library.
--Sarah
Hoskins, check. Good casting, that.
Whoops. Well, there goes that idea.
Wow, I just checked out the Plessix adaptation online. It's really lovely.
I think Rackham was originally approached to do Wind in the Willows, and he said no. Then Shepherd did the illustrations, the book became popular, and Rackham was interested. But hah! The Shepherd illustrations are definitive.
I think of The Wind in the Willows as not so much a book for children but as a book that children can enjoy in the proper context. My mom says there are two camps: The Alice in Wonderland fans (logic) and Wind in the Willows (emotion). Which one you enjoy more depends upon where you are at a particular point in your life.
Tellingly, Rat and Toad were played by cross-dressing comedians from two of the edgiest TV shows ever aired in the UK: The League of Gentlemen and Little Britain. The signature character of the guy who played Toad is The Only Gay In The Village, a portly yellow-spandex catsuit-wearing fellow who is outraged by the constant imaginary homophobia he perceives around him.
Hilarious, both of them. But I wouldn't let my kid see either of those shows ever, EVER, ever, ever, ever, EVER, ever, EVER, ever, ever, ever, ever, Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever.... (an inside joke for those who did catch WITW)
PJ.
The Plessix adaptations really are beautiful--those were the first items on my list when the I finally brow-beat the library into letting me buy graphic novels. (This is not to say that they are a substitute for the original, but still--everyone go and check them out!)
--Sarah
"My mom says there are two camps: The Alice in Wonderland fans (logic) and Wind in the Willows (emotion). Which one you enjoy more depends upon where you are at a particular point in your life." Alkelda, since I still adore both (although my fav is still Alice) I'm not sure where I am in my life!
I did not love the PBS movie as much as I hoped I would - for me it was more reminiscent of La Cage aux Folles than of our beloved book.
Thanks, Monica for reminding me of the Horwood sequels - I loved them years ago.