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Why do gay penguins make people so mad? ‘Tango’ tops banned books list -- again.

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It’s just an orphan penguin with two daddies. Why can’t people let it alone?

Once again, ‘And Tango Makes Three,’ the award-winning children’s book, has topped the American Library Assn.’s list of most frequently challenged books, announced Monday. ‘And Tango Makes Three’ tells the true story of two emperor penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo who hatched and parented a baby chick. What about the book has gotten feathers ruffled? The emperor penguins were both male.

Written by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson and illustrated by Henry Cole, ‘And Tango Makes Three’ has spent five years on the most-challenged list. For 2010 it again took the top spot. The library association writes that objections to the book include it being deemed ‘unsuited for age group.’ ‘Religious viewpoint’ and ‘homosexuality’ have also been cited as reasons for challenging the book.

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Other books that appear on the 2010 list are ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley, ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ by Sherman Alexie, ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins and Stephenie Meyer’s ‘Twilight.’ The complete top 10 -- and the chief objections to them -- is after the jump.

1. ‘And Tango Makes Three’ by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
Reasons: Homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group

2. ‘The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian’ by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

3. ‘Brave New World’ by Aldous Huxley
Reasons: Insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit

4. ‘Crank’ by Ellen Hopkins
Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit

5. ‘The Hunger Games’ by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence

6. ‘Lush’ by Natasha Friend
Reasons: Drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

7. ‘What My Mother Doesn’t Know’ by Sonya Sones
Reasons: Sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group

8. ‘Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America’ by Barbara Ehrenreich
Reasons: Drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint

9. ‘Revolutionary Voices’ edited by Amy Sonnie
Reasons: Homosexuality, sexually explicit

10. ‘Twilight’ by Stephenie Meyer
Reasons: Religious viewpoint, violence

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

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