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Central Park's Gay Penguins Cause Midwest Library Flaps
By
Jen Chung
Published Nov 17, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Nov 17, 2006
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Even though Central Park's famous gay penguin couple Silo and Roy broke up (Silo, the Anne Heche of the penguin world, took to a lady penguin named Scrappy), they were immortalized in the adorable children's book, And Tango Makes Three. And Tango Makes Three recounts how Silo and Roy were given a fertilized egg to hatch, after they unsuccessfully tried to hatch a rock - and baby girl Tango was born.
But the book has faced controversy, most recently in Shiloh, Illinois, where parents had tried to restrict access to the book, ideally in an area for mature issues with possible parental permission to even check it out. Luckily, the Shiloh superintendent Jennifer Filyaw (and the district attorney) felt differently, believing removing the book could be censorship, "My feeling is that a library is to serve an entire population. It means you represent different families in a society -- different religions, different beliefs. That's the role of a school library." (It's unclear whether parents are clamoring to take out the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson fairy tales are being cleared out - those stories are twisted!)
The AP also brings up an instance of a Missouri town library moving the book to the non-fiction section, after the library consulted with zoos who told her that "adoptions aren't unusual in the world of penguins." Well, it was the Incredibly True Story of Two Penguins in Love (for a while).
Here's the 2004 NY Times story on Silo and Roy. And the Central Park Zoo will be getting ready for its Wild Holiday Party on December weekends.
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Anne Heche
arts
baby
books
Brothers Grimm
central park
central park zoo
children
District
district attorney
gay
Hans Christian Anderson
holiday
library
love
ny times
take-out
The AP
True Story
wild
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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