Reflection on Censorship with "Tale's theme too adult for kids, patron says"

Post date: May 16, 2013 9:11:45 PM

Reid, Keith. "Tale's theme too adult for kids, patron says | Recordnet.com." Recordnet.com Home Page | San Joaquin County News, Jobs, Cars, Real Estate and more. N.p., 5 May 2007. Web. 16 May 2013. <http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070505/A_NEWS/705050321>.

Stephanie Bramasco from the Lodi Public Library challenged And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell about a mated pair of male penguins because it was what she called inappropriate for a 1-3 year old to have explained. She said that the penguins on the cover of the book do not suggest that they are of any sex other than heterosexual and would therefore not lead parents to believe that this book could contain such material. She asked for the book to either be banned or to have a warning label of some sort placed on it. Due to research in a previous class, I know that the book’s authors went out of their way to make it sound as factual as possible, leaving out personification that would make the penguins sound as if they were in love or anything else that personification may have a mated pair of penguins come across as. "I'd feel the same way if the penguins were murderers or rapists. Don't sugarcoat that type of material by making it pertain to cute penguins, or dogs or kittens or whatever. It's not appropriate material for a 3-year-old to see and hear." is what Bramasco said about the material. It should be noted that she did not check the book out herself, a friend checked it out and read it to her daughter, was shocked at what it contained and then told Stephanie about it who decided to take matters into her own hands so that her own children would not have the chance to grab it while perusing the library shelves. The library has a very specific contract which states that it is up to parental discretion when it comes to the content that the children are reading in the library and Stephanie Bramasco promises to look much more carefully at each book she checks out in the future from this particular library.

This library was very prepared to handle the challenge in question and also had four out of five directors vote for the book to stay in place on the shelves. This was the second book challenge in ten years for the director and she clearly knew how to deal with it. The article was very hard to find and I have come to realize that the only way to find actual cases of banned books online is if the location and item in question are already known. This shows that libraries are not making it known to the public that books are actively being banned in today’s society.