Friday, September 27, 2013

Review Me Twice: And Tango Makes Three (Justin Richardson & Peter Parnell)


This is just the cutest picture book ever. It has animals! It has a love story! It has a baby! It has a happy ending! It has social relevance! What more do you want?

The story itself is heart-warming and beautiful and happy, and I appreciate that Richardson and Parnell heard this story and apparently thought, "We need to make this into a kids' book." And Henry Cole did a great job illustrating... it's nothing ground-breaking or particularly different, but look at that fuzzy little bugger on the cover! That's the cute little fluffy Tango!

I suggest, that if you've had a bad day, you go pick up a copy of this book and read it and you'll smile because yay! Happy penguin family! (Of course, if you think homosexuality is a sin or amoral or whatever your hangup is, it might just make your day worse, so you should probably try something like Goodnight Moon or One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.)

Really, this is the most docile book in the entire world and we all know that the ONLY reason that it has ended up on the banned books list all these years is because it talks about gay penguins.  Which is sad.

It's an adorable book.  Because, WELL, PENGUINS!  Who doesn't love an adorable penguin.  And the book is very age appropriate.  The description of penguin mating is "when the right girl and the right boy find each other, they become a couple."  Seriously.  It's that cute.  And it's a sweet story.

I really liked the illustrations.  They weren't mind blowingly awesome, but they worked perfectly with the book.  Really, I don't understand how you could do anything but love this story.

2 comments:

  1. I heard about this book a while ago. It sounds so cute. I seriously feel like the idea of banning books is stupid. If you don't want to read something then fine, but who are you to take that book away from me. Or, in many cases, who are you to decide that my child can't read a book just because you don't want your child to? People are stupid. When is society going to learn that banning things and stirring up controversy just brings more attention to the thing you are trying to get rid of. The best way to get rid of something is to never talk about it, so people don't know it exists.

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    1. People don't challenge because because they want them to go away (well, ok I guess they DO but that's not the main point.) They ban them because it brings attention to them and THEIR ideals.

      They don't really care if the book goes into obscurity or not as long as they get to preach to the world.

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