A surprise from my tiny family this morning, as my grandchild Opal presented me with two gifts: the children’s picture book The Pengrooms by Paul Castle (Paul Castle Studio, 2022), together with an adorable plushie toy of Pringle the Pengroom — Pringle, who is grooms with Finn (both sporting rainbow bow ties, in case you missed the same-sex theme). The cover of the book, showing the couple atop a wedding cake, with the publisher’s blurb:
(#1) Follow Pringle and Finn, two penguins with big hearts, as they deliver wedding cakes to their friends in the animal kingdom. Each cake tells a story, and each [same-sex] wedding offers a challenge that Pringle and Finn must face together. The Pengrooms is an enduring tale about love, diversity, and the importance of working as a team.
Pringle is larger than Finn — couples differ in many ways — but they’re equal partners as a team. The Pringle plushie:
(#2) Pringle, with a really big bow tie
The concluding page:
Pringle and Finn were not perfect, but they were perfect for each other.
And everyone agreed, they made a great team.
A great team, like Paul Castle, an artist and writer (born and raised in Vancouver BC), and his husband Matthew Castle, né Olson, a classical violinist (from Seattle, where they now live together). Matthew is the Pringle of this couple — taller and more muscular — and he’s also less volatile, superficially more solid, tending to present himself as a guy guy; while Paul is the Finch, smaller and more delicate, also presenting himself as pleasantly gay, with huge amounts of wide-eye facial expression, an extravagant speech style, a variety of the gay voice, and accompanying hand gestures.
On the other hand, in their partnership, Paul fills what I’ve called the executive role (organizing their lives, with Matthew’s able help; running the company that’s the major focus of their lives; and serving as the couple’s primary public voice). He might look frivolous, but he’s thoughtful and deeply serious (for another guy like this, see my 6/29/24 posting “Pleasantly gay and deeply serious”).
Now the kicker, from the Pengroom website:
Paul Castle has lost over 90% of his vision to the untreatable eye disease, Retinitis Pigmentosa. His artwork reflects a desire to tell stories, and his whimsical illustrations aim to delight the imagination. Paul is currently a full-time author and illustrator and lives in Seattle with his husband, Matthew, and his guide dog, Mr. Maple.
Matthew, Paul, and Mr. Maple at home, with Paul posed as reading from the first Pengrooms book:
(#3) Matthew and Paul don’t usually dress identically, as they have in this photo, no doubt to accentuate their similarities and downplay their differences for the sake of publicity
The bad news. Besides Paul gradually losing his sight.
I looked at the book and my plushie and thought, surely this book has been banned. Well, apparently not yet. But its sequel has been: removed from sale at at least one bookstore. Here’s Paul, telling the story in a YouTube video “My Picture Book Got Banned!” (viewable here), with this description:
Paul is here to set the record straight and give you all the behind-the-scenes details that led to his children’s picture book, “The Secret Ingredient” [a sequel to “The Pengrooms”], getting banned!
Watch it all the way through for a demonstration of Paul wrestling fiercely with a series of moral complexities.
Penguins: ethology and more book banning. From the Museum Studies at Tufts University site, “What’s With All the Gay Penguins?” by Eric A. Carstens on 2/22/21:
Over and over again, zoos and aquariums around the world are making headlines for their same-sex penguin couplings. One of the most iconic couples was Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins who began performing mating rituals at the Central Park Zoo in 1998. After successfully incubating a rock and then a dummy egg, zookeepers decided to give the loving couple a real, fertilized egg. Roy and Silo hatched a baby, a female penguin named Tango. Tango then grew up to form a partnership with another female penguin named Tanuzi [and Roy, Silo, and Tango became famous through the children’s book And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell (which then became a frequent target for book banning)].
The list of gay penguin couples goes on and on and spans a wide range of species. Harry and Pepper were a pair of Magellenic penguins at the San Francisco Zoo. Sphen and Magic are a pair of male Gentoo penguins at SEA LIFE Aquarium in Sydney who hatched their first chick in 2018. Electra and Viola, also Gentoo penguins, are raising a chick at the L’Oceanogràfic in Valencia, Spain. At Zoo Berlin, two King penguins named Skipper and Ping have been trying to become fathers, unfortunately with no luck. Ronnie and Reggie are a pair of Humboldt penguins in London. In the Netherlands, a gay African penguin couple recently stole an egg from a lesbian penguin couple.
… The lives of male and female penguins are not as different from each other as we may expect. Regardless of sex, a parent’s responsibilities are similar — both invest equally in raising their chick. Aside from reproductive barriers, there is no reason why same-sex penguin couples cannot be successful parents [if necessary, by taking on abandoned eggs or chicks, or stealing them.]
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