In non-Hillary news, “Americans Can’t Stand To Read About Gay Penguins“:
NEW YORK–A children’s story about a family of penguins with two fathers once again tops the list of library books the American public objects to the most.
And Tango Makes Three, released in 2005 and co-written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, was the most “challenged” book in U.S. public schools and libraries for the second straight year, according to the American Library Association.
I didn’t know the ALA observed Straight Year. Guess I missed the first one. Anyway, this is a sad list in at least one respect:
The ALA defines a “challenge” as a “formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness.”
Other books on the top 10 list include Maya Angelou’s memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, in which the author writes of being raped as a young girl; Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, long attacked for alleged racism; and Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass…
I’d suggest someone rewrites Huck as an interracial gay romance, but it’s probably already been done.
[UPDATE: Yes, it has. “Come Back To The Raft Again, Huck, Honey” – Leslie Fiedler in Partisan Review, 1948]