`Twilight' series on list of challenged books

`Twilight' series on list of challenged books


NEW YORK – Stephenie Meyer, the hottest author for young people since J.K. Rowling, has a new link to the creator of "Harry Potter": a place high on the list of books most complained about by parents and educators.

Meyer's multimillion-selling "Twilight" series was ranked No. 5 on the annual report of "challenged books" released Wednesday by the American Library Association. Meyer's stories of vampires and teen romance have been criticized for sexual content; a library association official also thinks that the "Twilight" series reflects general unease about supernatural stories.

"Vampire novels have been a target for years and the `Twilight' books are so immensely popular that a lot of the concerns people have had about vampires are focused on her books," says Barbara Jones, director of the association's Office for Intellectual Freedom.

Christian groups for years have protested the themes of wizardry in Rowling's books, which don't appear on the current top 10.

Topping the 2009 chart was Lauren Myracle's "IM" series, novels told through instant messages that have been criticized for nudity, language and drug references. Last year's No. 1 book, "And Tango Makes Three," by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson, is now No. 2, cited again for its story about two male penguins adopting a baby. Third was Stephen Chbosky's "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," for which the many reasons include drugs, suicide, homosexuality and being antifamily.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100414/ap_on_en_ot/us_challenged_books

n.t.

+2

:rofl:

:thumbsup:

challenge it based on the abusive aspects, just the fact that it deals with vampires. Who cares if girls now go into abusive relationships thinking they have finally found their Edward Cullen? We just can't have them reading about vampires!

so she can't leave the HOUSE...what we're opposed to is overly flowery descriptions of kisses! :rofl:

Or that part where she isn't allowed to see her friends anymore because they are "dangerous."

but not "controversial" books.

They can't be all that bad.

Fundies go nuts when ever someone writes something about fake shit like wizards and vampires.

call me an ogre but I made my kid read Elie Wiesel "Night Trilogy", Steinbeck "GOW" and Dickens "Tale of Two Cities" in the last 6 months...

Instead of dwelling on a horny chick who wants her vampire boyfriend to "turn her" he thinks about the true poverty of the dustbowl era, social revolution and the horrors of hate.

I'll take anything that gets more of them reading, if just because starting on that usually at least nudges them towards more later.

Anything interspersed that won't make them want to kill themselves? Good literature can be happy, too.

Some kids got their start reading from comic books. Some from heavier fare.

Who cares?? When my kids have to chalk up "reading points" for school, even the Sunday comics are included!

It's all reading! It's fine.

If you're looking for Steinbeck then read Steinbeck.

Twilight...from what little I have seen...is atrociously terrible schmaltz.

I don't think the Harry Potter books stand up with real children's lit (E. Nesbit, the Narnia books) as far as writing style goes. They are, IMO, rather sloppy and unedited.

However, it's also true that a lot of kids weren't reading and these books may have started them doing so - not to mention, that series books are a good incentive for young readers - they actually look forward to reading more. And I actually heard someone recently say that the Twilight books had been a gateway series for them - started them on a reading path.

And really, are they any worse than the Sweetwater High books, or one of my personal UNfavorites, Judy Blume (which teenage problem, in lieu of developing real characters, should I tackle today?)

And yes, by saying that I'm admitting that I read the books. Mostly to know what it was I was making fun of.

It's basically a cloistered Mormon housewife's wet dream.

:rofl:

I can't stand stuff written by religious nuts. Disgusting.

"It's OK that Edward watches me sleep and tells me not to talk to certain people and almost breaks every bone in my body when we have sex, he LOVES me so it's OK!"

It's a wonderful theme to sell young women in our society. So healthy! :sarcasm:

and populated the world of her creation well with them.

are VERY Tory.

At least Harry Potter has strong social justice themes.

are very preachy. I could hardly finish the last one. I was nearly choking to death on the religious message.

Lewis was too busy portraying scientists as morally bankrupt, and 'dark-skinned easterners' as mindless followers of an evil god to write real children's lit. Oh, and don't forget that being a normal teenage girl can get you denied entrance to heaven...

As far as Twilight is concerned, at least Sweet Valley High never portrayed a boy sneaking into a girl's room at night to watch her sleep, and then described this as a GOOD thing that showed how much he loved her!

Twilight is the most poorly-written drivel I have ever encountered. They are in no way equivalent where quality of narrative is concerned.

Wait for it...a fundy will say it.

Nothing should be banned, but people who read this trash should be made fun of on a regular basis.

If you don't want to read it, then don't. It's not hurting you. It's also bringing a whole new generation of kids into the bookstores and libraries across the country.

Misogyny is rough on society and I will probably fight it until they bury me. You can poke fun at anything I read if you like, I've been there before.

But like I said, nothing should be banned, I am a firm believer in that.

There is NO explicit sex in the "Twilight" books. The one instance of obvious sexuality is not even described. If one actually read the book, you would also find some fairly overt references to Mormon beliefs -- no sex before marriage, for example.

I'm also wondering how many here have actually read the books. It's interesting to me that the "writing is terrible", despite the fact that Stephenie Meyer managed to tell the story sufficiently well to get picked out of a slush pile and offered a three-book, $675,000 contract before the first book even hit the stores. The books are geared to the young adult market as well; they're not meant to appeal to anyone over 21, but people are reading them anyway.

If you enjoy reading it and it makes you happy, then good for you.

Same with an OS - you like Linux, Solaris, Mac, Windows, etc? Fine with me.

I am re-reading the Xanth novels and The Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper, and I am sure some see them as silly. I don't care, I like them. Same with HP Lovecraft.

If I only took the advice of others my life would be boring and nothing more than an extension of their life :)

Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising is a really good series.

I found that the dialogue was really some of the worst I'd ever read. And, I read a lot of YA books.

Go ahead. Let's see what you've got, huh? Ten to twenty pages. You realize, of course, there's a lot happening in those ten pages. Most people in a bookstore will look at a book for less than ten seconds, so you'd better bring it within the first three sentences.

C'mon. I'll look forward to reading your work!

I'm a freelance writer, non-fiction but I can send you links of quite a few articles I've published. Then you send me some of your published work.

I've also read thousands of books and I'm a horror/sci-fi fanatic. I know a good vampire story when I read it. Twilight sucks. Sucks long and hard. I read about half of the first book before I decided against killing anymore of my brain cells.

I believe I have enough experience and intelligence to point out shitty work.

In other words, you can't do, but you'll criticize others that do. It's unfortunate that you can't recognize Stephenie Meyers' achievement at the least; her three-book contract out of a slush pile is miraculous to anyone who works in the publishing industry.

You're the one stating that Meyers' work "kills your brain cells", it's up to you to prove yours is better, isn't it?

I'm a published writer honey, I've proven myself in my arena.

Her achievement? Sorry, she got lucky, it's her editor and publisher's achievement. They saw a cheap and easy cash-cow for the tween set.

Once again, I have the experience in writing, editing and reading to know shitty work when I see it.

My question for you would be why you love bad dialogue, one-dimensional characters and shitty flow so much. Well?

Please tell me you're not doing that.

Stephenie Meyers managed to get the words on the page with enough effectiveness to be offered an unprecedented contract. Out of the slush pile. The only comparison I can think of that explains what she did is either being struck by lightning, or JK Rowlings' career.

If you think you can do better, please do so.

And yet when my country got mired in two bullshit wars in the Middle East, I thought it was fucked up and I said so.

Are you now going to tell me that I should shut up unless I think I could do better with that too?

Just because I'm not a writer doesn't mean Stephenie Meyer isn't a terrible hack of a writer who basically turned her Mormon LiveJournal into a bad fiction series that romanticizes domestic abuse.

And honestly...you don't need to write to know bad writing when you see it.

It's like saying you need to direct to know Ishtar was bad.

to recognize shit writing. Stephanie Meyers is worse than a hack -- she's a hack with delusions of literary grandeur and a rabid following of sub-literates. She's the Second Coming of Anne Rice, with added mediocrity for maximum appeal.

And there is Twilight that sucks really, really, badly. I'm an English teacher. I've read a lot of stuff and am pretty well read. If reading Twilight turns your crank, great. If it gets teens to read, great. In the spectrum of literature, it still sucks, though.

:rofl: :rofl:

Each KISS is accorded major drama.... A simple KISS.

Un-fucking-believable.

There isn't any sex. The last book is the only time they HAVE sex and it isn't like a romance novel where they describe it in detail. They just skip to the next scene.

but the idea of this series being on anyone "ban" list is just stupid.

Meyer is very deliberately PG even with her "adult" book. The writing is beyond terrible, and anti-feminist, and stalkeriffic, but I can't really imagine where someone could begin to criticize it on "sexual content" grounds.

Not every piece of writing needs to be a work of art.