An Erie, Illinois school district has
banned Todd Parr's The Family Tree due to a gay reference.
The colorful children's book is a New
York Times bestseller and winner of the 2004 Oppenheim Toy
Portfolio Gold Award. More than 2 million copies of the book have
been sold.
The book's inclusion of the line, “Some
families have two moms or two dads,” reportedly led to the book's
exclusion.
Appearing on CNN, Parr said he was
shocked to hear his 10-year-old old book was banned.
“I was disappointed,” he said of
the decision.
“This book for me was just about how
do you do a book for kids and depict every possible kind of family
that you can in a picture book. And it just teaches about single
parents and kids that are [of] different color, or divorce even. I
just wanted a book that you could help as a springboard to introduce
that there are all kinds of different families in the world and each
one of them is special and important.”
Erie, Illinois School Superintendent
Bradley Cox said via telephone that sexual orientation was not an
“age appropriate topic for elementary school children.” (Watch
the entire segment at CNN.)