Utah Avoids Banned Book Controversy

Oct 01, 2007 by Greg Marshall

 

"Tango Makes Three" remains on shelves in Salt Lake City.

(KCPW News) The most controversial book of the year has not caused a stir in Utah, says Salt Lake City Library Co-Director Britton Lund.

"And Tango Makes Three" is a children's picture book about two male penguins who raise an abandoned egg at New York City's Central Park Zoo.

Nationwide, it has received more challenges for content than any other book in 2006. Lund says the book will stay on the shelves at the City Library.

So far this year, only one item has received a request for removal from a patron in Salt Lake. It's a French film called Mysterious Skin about a teenage hustler and a young man obsessed with alien abductions.

Most of the time, Lund says, patrons don't want films and books removed from shelves, just placed elsewhere. Library officials formed a committee to review Mysterious Skin and decided to keep it in the library's collection.

Banned Books Week runs through Saturday at the City Library.