Miller (2014) explores a series of scandals in the genre of children's literature, examining the taboos surrounding children and their exposure to particular literary forms and content. Her research examines the public debates surrounding the exposure of children to literature that contains reference to homosexuality or sexual behavior more generally from picture books up to young adult novels. The analysis includes Lesléa Newman’s Heather Has Two Mommies (1989), Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three (2005), and Michael Willhoite’s Daddy’s Roommate (1991).
Before delving into the scandals, Miller sets up a historical framework for the social impact literature plays in a child’s development, connecting the relatively modern rise of the classification of “childhood” with the development of children’s texts and ideas about “transformation, control, and
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The book recounts the true event of two male chinstrap penguins, Roy and Silo, who adopt an egg to hatch and raise baby Tango, stating in the beginning of the story that events are based on a true story, and includes a history of the chinstrap penguins living in the Central Park Zoo. However, Richardson acknowledges in The Guardian that the storybook was intended to serve a broader cultural agenda, asserting that “one of the areas that parents find very difficult to discuss with their children is homosexuality” (quoted in Lea 2007). (p. 128). The director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, commented, “People who complain about And Tango Makes Three really believe that homosexuality is wrong, that it’s against God’s commandments, that it’s harming society. The problem is that these children are growing up in a society where some of their classmates are going to come from same-sex couples” (quoted in Lea 2007). (p.