Story Archive

The Anti-Penguin Brigade

“It is a humorous book depicting cartoon penguins that we had ordered wrongly thinking it was suitable for children given its use of brightly cartooned penguins,” said Brooke Philpott, the manager of the Sovereign Star Nursery and Preschool in Kaiapoi, New Zealand. “The book,” Gus and Waldo’s Book of Love, “is otherwise bright and funny,” Philpott says, but a visiting parent spotted it and “raised concerns” about it. “The offending bit that we did not spot until a much closer reading,” Philpott continued, “is that it depicts the two penguins in bondage gear.” She removed it from circulation. The parent said “other kids there brought the book over to me from the shelf and asked me to read it. I looked at it and said, ‘go choose another one’.” (RC/Australian AP) ...Right: let’s find a normal book about penguins, where they wear nothing at all.