Twenty-five years ago, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo coupled up, fostered a chick, and became New York’s most famous nontraditional family. Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, authors of the children’s book adaptation of the gay penguins’ heartwarming story, And Tango Makes Three, join Ali Velshi.
Henry Cole illustrated the story about family dynamics, love, identity and acceptance. Although widely hailed as a contemporary classic, this true story, told with age-appropriate language, faced calls for bans almost immediately after its publication. Detractors claimed the real-life story about gay penguins was an instrument for “grooming.”
When And Tango Makes Three debuted in 2015, very few books chronicled families with dynamics outside straight cis moms and dads. Then as now, Parnell and Richardson think the impact banning has on their young readers.
“Imagine a kindergarten who has two dads or … two moms, who finds out that this book has been pulled out of the school library because it was described as pornographic or sexual or inappropriate,” Richardson says. “Think about a 12-year-old who’s struggling with whether she will or will not tell some of her friends that she thinks she’s lesbian, to hear her again that school has decided that this book, because it depicts a life like hers, is so dangerous that it needs to be removed from the school library. Those are the people whose feelings we’re concerned about.”
Listen to Velshi, Justin Richardson, & Peter Parnell discuss the cultural impact of And Tango Makes Three
Watch Velshi, Parnell, and Richardson on how two gay penguins symbolize all families
Velshi on banned books on MSNBC:
