Gay penguin story on list of disputed library books

From The BBC

13 April 2015

A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin has again made a list of books to have received the most complaints from library users. And Tango Makes Three came third in a list of titles the American Library Association said had received the most complaints from parents and educators. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian came top of the list. Sherman Alexie's tale of a young Native American at a predominantly white high school was first published in 2007. Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, a graphic novel about a young Iranian girl growing up in the years after the country's Islamic Revolution, is ranked second.

The list of titles, all of which have been the subject of a formal written complaint, filed with a library or school, requesting they be removed, is compiled annually by the ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

The alleged "cultural insensitivity" of Alexie's novel is one of the reasons cited in complaints calling for its removal. And Tango Makes Three - based on a real-life story of two male penguins who hatched an egg at the New York Zoo - is accused of promoting a homosexual agenda. Other titles on the list include Toni Morrison's debut novel The Bluest Eye, The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and A Stolen Life, a kidnapping memoir by Jaycee Dugard.

The ALA counted 311 challenges in 2014, roughly the same as were lodged in 2013.

[It does make me laugh somewhat – I stopped being dismayed about such behaviour long ago – when countries who pride themselves on free speech and free expression complain about, or even ban, books because the contents in some way disturb or offend them. There’s an easy solution to that ‘problem’ – don’t read them. But don’t expect your difficulty with certain subjects to be de facto justification for you stopping other people from reading them! Personally I’d want to read a book because it was banned (or was simply controversial) just to see what the fuss was about. Criticising a book makes more people read it not less. If you want a book to fade into obscurity then ignore it. Maybe, just maybe, it will go away….]