It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it out of sight

books:

	• Tres Con Tango / And Tango Makes Three Peter Parnell, Justin Richardson Lectorum Publications, 2006 - 32 pages average customer review:based on 89 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Lovely family story appreciates family differences

I purchased "And Tango Makes Three' for my six year old daughter and we both loved the book. The illustrations are beautiful, the number of words on each page are age appropriate (not too long or too short), and the best part was that it was based on a true story. Although my family is the traditional male & female parent household, I want my children to be understanding and accepting of all types of families and I think Tango opens the door to say, it's okay to have 2 male parents as long as they love each other and the child. Even if you don't want to have a deep conversation with your child about lifestyle choices, you can simply read the story as a cute story about some silly penguins. I think every family library should have this book!

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Have To Agree With Reviewer "Steve"

I think he hit the nail on the head with his review.

I got this for my children after the recent hubbub in the news about it. If it upsets the narrow-minded then I usually know it is worth reading.

This book was one of the cutest books I've seen yet. There was nothing disgusting or perverse about this book and my youngest son was just happy that Roy and Silo got to have a baby of their own because "They wuv babies".

Anyone who has done nothing more than watch "March of the Penguins" would know that it is the male penguin who does most of the care of the egg and hatchling. So why should this seem odd? Yes, the story says that the zookeeper realized "they loved each other" but come on. The focus is suppose to be on the fact that two MALE penguins were able to do something that it was only thought could be done with a male and FEMALE penguin.

People who are up in arms about this book really need to get a life. It's sad and disgusting the lows people will go to these days. If this book offends you then please, don't let your children study biology.

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Endearing and Innocent

It is appalling to me to know that there are sewar-filled, reprobate, sullied, paranoid minds, in which this book can be interpreted as having a cloaked "homosexual agenda."

Not since Jerry Falwell spotted "gay" Telly Tubbies on the loose has there been a more stupid accusation of a supposed threat to child development.

Only a sick jaundice eye would see such a "homosexual" agenda in this book. So fearful are these vacuous little minds that they fear that thier son or daughter after reading this book will irrevocably forego traditional heterosexual marriage, turn gay and have a homosexual union and adopt a child other than their own to raise. So threatening is this utterly absurd possibility that in some schools, the book has actually been removed from the non-fiction and childrens section.

So what is all the fuss about? What is this story? It is actually based on a true incident involving two male penguins that together took charge over an egg that they cared for until it hatched and reared the baby penguin, called Tango.

From a biological point of view, this incident is fascinating but not all together unqiue. While we humans would have difficulty perhaps fully appreciating this, it is testament to how the importance of the survival of the species can have such strong instincual drives for non-related members to ensure the survival of members of their species. But then again, this is not that unheard of even in human settings. In many places, the "it takes a village to raise a child" is actually taken literally, where non-biological fathers will watch over and protect the offspring of other men as if their own. The children are viewed as being members of the community and in this repect the child in question has not only a biological mother and father, but an army of non-related mothers and fathers not far behind. This unifies the community and makes it incredibly rich in social networks and very dependable and strong--socially and especially during times of crisis. In our modern world, such a concept might even seem disturbingly offensive in concept to parents seeing their child as only theirs and (for good reasons) not wanting their children to be so trusting of others in viwing them as proverbial "mommies" and "daddies." But to then fear this book for having a said "hidden" agenda of a homosexual nature is the only truly reprehensible thing.

This book is an endearing story and perfectly innocent for children. It is not housing any agenda of any kind and only a diseased mind would think otherwise.

As a Christian heterosexual male, I am ashamed of the all too frequent nonsense that many in the Christian community are saying and claiming. Poor examples for Christians such as Falwell and Pat Robertson, who in their sporadic fits of self-rigtheous retardation, offer not the New Testament message of God's eternal love and peace but rather the erroneous message of the ended era of Law, namely condemnation, wrath, and destruction (such as Robertson more than implying God would soon wipe off Dover, Pennsylvania for voting in upholding separation of Church and State).

And even if they were "gay" Penguins and creationism is completely true, then would not have God have created (yikes) "gay" Penguins? Hmm...

No word if the two male penguins and the purse carrying Telly Tubby are mingling yet, but I am sure Rev. Falwell will keep us all appraise of the situation.

God bless our nation--and SAVE it from its stupidity! AMEN.

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It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it out of sight

I am a children's librarian and my husband is a graduate student at Columbia University. Generally these two occupations do not intersect all that often. Then my husband started taking TV Writing classes with a professor by the name of Peter Parnell. We neither of us thought that much of it. I didn't recognize Mr. Parnell's name and my husband doesn't exactly walk up to every person he meets asking, "Hey, have you written a children's book?". Then one day my husband came home all ah-flutter because he had finally discovered something remarkable. Peter Parnelll and his partner Justin Richardson wrote a picture book together. And not just any picture book either. No sir, these two wrote the sole well-written well-illustrated picture book about a gay family in the history of the English language. I kid you not. What they wrote was, "And Tango Makes Three", and I was stunned. My husband even came close to suggesting that his professor see my review of his book on Amazon.com.... but then he realized that I never wrote one. Honest-to-God that is not my fault. I've been meaning to review "Tango" for months and months but it's on a list of roughly 532 OTHER picture books that I also need to review. I just haven't had the time. Today, however, I made the time. Long before I realized that I had an oblique connection to its authors, I was promoting "And Tango Makes Three" to anyone and everyone alive. Not only does it involve the hottest fowl today (penguins are very "in") but it's a touching tale of finding a family, no matter what.

At the Central Park Zoo in New York City there are all kinds of animal families. There are red panda families. There are cotton-top tamarin families. And then there's Silo and Roy. About the time the boy penguins started noticing the girl penguins and the girl penguins started noticing the boys, two boy penguins started noticing one another. They did everything together and the keeper, Mr. Gramzay, noticed their relationship. Eventually Roy and Silo noticed that the other penguin couples were making nests and having babies. They wanted a baby too, so they built a nest and attempted to hatch a rock. Mr. Gramzay saw what they were trying to do, and he had an egg that needed caring for. The egg was given to Roy and Silo who hatched it successfully and, together, raised baby Tango "because it takes two to make a Tango". Now the three penguins swim together and rest together. "and, like all the other penguins in the penguin house, and all the other animals in the zoo, and all the families in the big city around them, they went to sleep". A note at the back points out that this is a true story.

I think we all recall the brief scandal when a library was forced to reshelve adorable "Tango" in its non-fiction section. It's not the worst fate a picture book can suffer, but it is a bit of a pity. The charm of this book is how straightforward the storytelling is. Justin Richardson previously wrote "Everything You Never Wanted Your Kids to Know About Sex (But Were Afraid They'd Ask)" or EYNWYKKAS(BWATA) for short. I'm kidding. He has a degree in psychiatry and with Parnell the two have a very good grasp on what does and does not work in a picture book. In this particular case, the story is key. We don't need a didactic text about accepting differences or a detailed explanation of what makes a penguin gay. We just want the story. We want to know what Roy and Silo's situation was, what problems they had (in this case, a literal empty nest syndrome), and how it was solved. We get that. The book acknowledges that families like Tango's are different, but I think Parnell's playwriting skills have been key in at least one concrete way: He knows how to utilize that old authorial advice show "show, don't tell". It is clear as crystal that this is a family. They love one another. And because this is the message and this is the format you'd have to be a pretty hard-hearted customer not to be swayed by this tale of common family values.

Here's where Richardson and Parnell lucked out. I've read plenty of first-time picture book authors who had a great story under their belts. But if the publisher of their book gives them a two-bit hack of an illustrator, it doesn't matter how great the story is. This is the lesson we can all take away from the oft-banned, "King and King". In the case of "Tango" Simon & Schuster actually decided to get someone good. Someone along the lines of Henry Cole. Cole wasn't a sure-thing either. Obviously he wasn't afraid of courting controversy, since this was the same illustrator that brought us Harvey Fierstein's own picture book, "The Sissy Duckling". But "Sissy" for all its charms, was a sloppy affair. You would never guess from that work alone that Cole was capable of the touching understated pictures found in "Tango". In this book the pictures are some of the sweetest ever made of penguins and certainly the nicest illustrations to ever accompany a picture book with gay characters. Who knew that penguins could have such bemused little faces? I think the cover illustration probably will give you the best indication of how a picture can be sweetly touching without overdosing on the saccharine.

The fact that this book is considered contentious is absurd. Yet we live in absurd times and we must face up to the fact that there are people out there for whom "And Tango Makes Three" represents something hideous. With that in mind, I encourage all librarians and booksellers to carry "Tango". Buy it for your friends' children. I can't tell you how happy I was when I went to the Central Park Zoo and found that their gift store prominently displayed the book front and center. Every year Gay Pride Week comes along and have almost no books to display for the event. Now that has changed. A beautiful book that does not preach or smack you over the head with a "message". It's just a great story.

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reviews: 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, page 14, 15, 16, 17, 18

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