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"And Tango Makes Three" by Justin Richardson

Author:

Justin Richardson

Illustrator:

Henry Cole

Publisher:

Simon and Schuster, 2005

Reviewed by:

John Warren Stewig, Carthage College

Chinstrap penguins, inhabitants of the Central Park Zoo in New York, are the main characters in this fictionalized true story of how two male penguins hatched an egg given to them by their keeper, and are parenting the resulting baby penguin. This describes how they built a nest, tried to hatch a rock, taking turns at tending it, until the keeper gave them an egg two heterosexual parents were unable to care for. Their tending behavior paid off, in the hatching of Tango, who they have continued to parent as she grows older (and attract many visitors to the penguin exhibit). The language describing this unusual event is simple and unobtrusive and the watercolor and line full page double spread and smaller illustrations are similarly self-effacing.