CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) – A picture book based on a true story about two male penguins that raise an adopted hatchling together has been ordered off bookshelves in one of the state’s largest school districts, officials said.

And Tango Makes Three was banned in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools after parent inquiries. Superintendent Peter Gorman acknowledged that his staff failed to follow district policy and banned the book after no formal complaints were made. A committee will be allowed to review the decision, he said.

The story about presumably gay penguins at New York’s Central Park Zoo has been the focus of proposed bans at schools and public libraries in several states. Charlotte-Mecklenburg is the first school district to ban the book, according to the American Library Association.

The ban came in a Nov. 30 memo from district administrators to school principals and library staff. Gorman said parents and a Republican county official had asked him about the book.

A miscommunication between Gorman and his chief of staff, Robert Avossa, led to the book being banned with neither a written complaint nor an advisory committee review at a school as required by district policy, Gorman said.

“I screwed this one up,” Gorman told the Charlotte Observer.

In the memo banning the book, district officials said the book “focuses on homosexuality” and provides no vital information to primary students. “We did not believe the book would stimulate growth in ethical standards, and the book is too controversial,” the memo stated.

The American Library Association criticized Charlotte-Mecklenburg school officials for not giving the book an open, balanced review.

“One parent’s decision shouldn’t dictate whether or not the book is available to all the other families in the community,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, a deputy director for the association’s Freedom to Read Foundation.

“Any challenge to a book is ultimately an attempt to remove an idea from public discourse,” she said.

Mecklenburg County Commissioner Bill James, a Republican, had e-mailed Gorman to see if the district had the book.

“I am opposed to any book that promotes a homosexual lifestyle to elementary school students as normal,” he said.

District spokesperson Nora Carr said the last book to be banned from Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools was Be Safe About Sex more than 10 years ago under Superinten-dent John Murphy.