About spit the old coffee out this morning as I read the paper. AP ran a spotlight story on controversial books. Of course, the bottom line is more books were 'challenged' in 2006 than in 2005. Challenges rose 30% according to the ALA.
Cases in point are the two children's books "And Tango Makes Three" and "The Higher Power of Lucky." The Tango book has two male penguins raising a baby penguin, major no no. Yep, this children's book advocates homosexuality according to many. Yeah, right.
The Lucky book, of course, uses the word 'scrotum' in the story. Oh my, guess I must have missed the parenting class where we should only use metaphorical terms for anatomy.
Good grief, don't these people have anything better to do? I'd heard about both of these book brouhahas several months back. We actually did have someone challenge the Tango book at my local library. Don't think anyone dissed the Lucky book.
2 comments:
I keep hearing about this Tango book. Humph. Maybe I'll go buy one and stick it in with the other picture books (yes, junior high kids like picture books during reading time too) in my classroom and see if any parents come unglued over it.
I call that stirring the pot:) Sort of like when I ordered Brent Hartinger books for the YA collection. They were never challenged....although I did have Susan Pfeffer's book "Life as We Know It" challenged over content.
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