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Penguins don’t scare me.

In fact, nothing penguins do scares me, at least as it’s recorded in the children’s book "And Tango Makes Three."

"And Tango Makes Three" was written with utility if not poetry by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. It contains some fetching illustrations by Henry Cole.

The book traces the allegedly true story of two male chinstrap penguins who raised a chick together.

An offended parent recently asked the North Kansas City Schools Board of Education to remove the book from all its school libraries. He suggested it normalizes homosexual relationships and exposes young children to sexual subject matter.

After much debate, the school board eventually affirmed an earlier decision to keep the book.

The board members also asked Superintendent Todd White to segregate library materials by grade level and protect younger students from information deemed inappropriate.

That’s a lot dust raised by a 29-page children’s book.

My curiosity was peaked. So I took a big chance and decided to expose my son, the Little Master, to this little Pandora’s box.

I purchased a copy, had him read it and then do a book report. I didn’t say anything about the book ahead of time because I wanted his unadulterated perspective.

Bear in mind that the LM, a second-grader, is in the school district’s gifted program and is an excellent reader. He recently read one of the Harry Potter books in a weekend.

Here, verbatim, is his book report:

"There were two penguins named Roy and Silo. They live in New York City, at Central Park Zoo. They raised a baby penguin named Tango."

There was nothing in there to indicate trauma, so pressed him if there was anything unusual about the story.

"No," he said.

Apparently, from one child’s eyes, "And Tango Makes Three" was a pleasant if not noteworthy story. Nothing more or less.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so," Hamlet told Rosencrantz.

A public school library should be a classroom where students learn how to contribute to a civil society comprised of a wide spectrum of perspectives, many of which will be wildly different than their own.

I’m not comfortable with the idea that we’re going to keep children from being "exposed" — like a disease — to ideas or concepts that might challenge their prejudices or stereotypes.

I recall the hours I spent with tall stack of books about World War I, World War II and the Vietnam War at the public library in Berkeley, Calif.

In these books, I learned about depravity, terror, mass murder, political treachery, totalitarianism, torture and genocide, among other dangerous topics.

But I also learned about valor, sacrifice, camaraderie, innovation, cooperation, democracy and redemption.

And I discovered writers who left an indelible mark on my life, authors such as Cornelius Ryan, Ernest Hemingway, Boris Pasternak, Ernie Pyle, Tim O’Brien and my own personal patron saint, Studs Terkel.

There’s another book about birds that’s truly dangerous.

In P.D. Eastman’s "Are You My Mother?" a baby bird is left alone while her destitute, single mom searches desperately for food.

The baby plunges from her nest and spends the rest of the book confronting increasingly terrifying obstacles. "Are you my mother?" she asks pathetically.

Finally, the baby is saved by a kind-hearted excavator operator and the mother returns. Of course, they both probably starved to death after their natural habitat was destroyed by development.

I remember being terrified by that book as child. It caused nightmares. But, for some reason, it was deemed appropriate by the so-called adults in my life.

Stupid adults.

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