Tot Tuesday: And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, Henry Cole (Illustrator)

Welcome to Tot Tuesday – a weekly feature where I review and share a children’s book. Children’s books are such a big part of my life now that I want to share them for other parents, grandparents or anyone who buys a child a book with the hope of instilling a lifelong love of reading.

The books I review and share are generally books from my daughter’s bookshelves and her library selections. She generally selects library books by a very technical method of grabbing every book in her reach and shoving them into the bag we bring with us. Thus, each week will be a surprising post.

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson, Peter Parnell, Henry Cole (Illustrator) - I chose this book as this week's Tot Tuesday for the simple fact that it is Banned Books Week and this book has been challenged. Two male penguins fall in love and attempt to raise a baby penguin from a little rock. They are following what all the other penguin couples do - keep it warm and protect it from the world. The zookeeper sees this and replaces the rock with a real penguin egg. When the penguin hatches they are a happy family of three.

Sweet story, right? WRONG if you are a person in favor of banning books. See, the whole two Father's thing is teaching immoral behavior - that gay couples are acceptable.

This is a completely non-fiction story - this little penguin egg was cared for my two loving people who just happen to both be male. The fact that people want this obviously rich in love book out of children's hands makes me very sad...and very angry. This is why we have read this book to Sammie multiple times already and when she is more gentle with paper pages we will buy this book for her. It will be an example of how love comes in so many colors, shapes, genders and sizes - and how we should embrace them all!