This story takes place in a zoo in New York. It starts by talking about all of the animal families that live in the zoo and then it focuses on the penguins. It begins to discuss how a boy and a girl penguin find each other and beome a couple. Except for Roy and Silo. These 2 male penguins do everything together and they watch other penguin couples and they do the same things. They make a nest of stones (like the other penguins) and they sleep together (like the other penguins). Eventually, they realized that the other couples were having babies and they weren't. They found a rock and they treated as an egg; they took turns sitting on it to keep it warm and they were very cautious. The zoo keeper was watching them and realized what they were doing so he found and egg that needed to be cared for and he put it in their nest. When the new baby penguin finally arrives the zoo keeper names him Tango because it takes 2 to make Tango. From then on they lived like all of the other families in the penguin house.
I thought this book was great! I really liked that it was written from a penguin family because I think it makes it more fun and I think that children will really enjoy it. I also think that it made it really easy to make connections to humans, so even though it disconnected by talking about penguins it was easy to come back and talk about it on a more common level. I think that would be great for children as well. I liked that it talked about them watching the other penguin couples and how they did the exact same things because it shows that there really is no difference between the couples other than they are two males. My favorite part is when the zoo keeper brings an egg for them to care for because I think this could bring up a lot of great discussions, for adults and for children. It shows that although they themselves cannot have a child together, there are other ways and they can still be happy together. I thought this book did a great job of addressing the topic and making it accessable to children.
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I read this book too! I felt very similarly to you! I thought it was a great book and really didn't undersand why it is SUCH a controversal book. The pictures were appropriate and it wasn't criticizing or demeaning. I would definitely use it in my classroom if it was an appropriate time. Would you use it in your classroom? Your post was very detailed and thorough. Good Job! :)
ReplyDeleteI agree as well. I was rather skeptic of this book at first because it was so controversial. Out of all the controversial books I read for our class, I felt like this was possibly the least controversial, especially since it was a true story. I think this book would be very beneficial to have in my future classroom.
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