Perhaps there’s a teaching point there.

With respect to the “sky is falling, our children are so involved with dubious characters” approach, one can go back to The Bard himself to see that much ado has been made about nothing.

Also, much like we talk about women’s bodies in movies and magazines not being realistic, we have also talked about how Edward embodies the “perfect” man (smart, educated, wealthy, protective, sensitive, loving, and self-less in many ways), and perhaps you should not base your expectations of a man on Edward.

If a parent is going to advise a child not to read these books due to the unhealthy nature of the relationships, surely they will also not allow their children to read Romeo and Juliet.

This is a fictional book ment for entertainment. Do people honeslty think teenagers are this impressonable? They arn’t and why must a book become a role modle for teenagers? The only time a perent will have to worry about this is if your child starts dateing a vampier! Then and only then, well i guess you can’t do too much because they will suck your blood… huh… well thats what you get for reading into things that are basic and not meant to dive deeper in, mabey people will start thinking that is promtos animal abuse, because jake is a wolf.

Kelly
sorry. As a reading specialist, I must disagree. I believe that even my fifth graders can discern fanstasy from reality. Remember the MA high school that had to send out a memo to parents assuring them that there were “no real vampires”…c’mon..

Jill
oh give me a break.

Patricia Kinsley
I totally agree and after reading the first two books I’m thrilled my 13yr old daughter has not been drawn to the series.

Chrissy White
Young girls have been obsessing over boys (and vise versa) since before Heathcliff and Cathy fell in love…if you have a romantic sensibility, you have a romantic sensibility. And if you live long enough, you eventually grow out of it….sigh..

Jodi Rogers
Bullcrap…monitor your kids if you want..there are far worse things in this world that they get hooked on…if you have taught your kids correctly, they will know better….this is a love story that is obviously not real…get in touch with your kids and their “reality”

Dori Kelly
Why does the love interest have to be a vampire? Yuk! Whatever happened to Heathcliff and Kathy? LOL

Jill Cavanaugh
Not all the teen’s who have seen the movie twilight or new moon have actually read the books. if you go into a packed new moon theater and ask them how many have read the books only a small percent will raise their hands, then ask how many are there for Robert Pattinson and a good percent will raise their hands, then ask how many are there for Taylor Lautner and a very large percent will raise their hands. Then ask them why they are there to see these characters and they will say “for the shirtless scenes”. I agree if a parent monitors their children there should be no problems.

Kim Giroux Natola
This series has lead my daughter to do a ton of reading. She knows there are no vampires. It is fun reading. They read about the Salem Witch trials in school….who believes in witches?

Kelly
The Witch of Blackbird Pond is required reading in most districts around middle school age and is RIFE with such nonsense. Why not focus on our deteriorating school systems that focus solely on high stakes testing results and are forgetting to teach our kids how to LOVE reading. Lifelong readers LOVE reading. Google Jim Trelease and read some of … See Morehis demographic stats on quality of life, longevity and status of readers vs nonreaders. To be fair, on his site there’s little mention of demographic stats on teens who think vampires are real….I’m SURE they do just fiiiiiine.

Vanessa Amaral
I love the Twilight saga…so good!!!

Stephanie Gardyna
I agree with Kelly, we’ve got to get the kid reading again.

Chris Cook Espinola
Books are books and I think that teens usually can separate one from reality! We all read to escape reality and fantasize for a little while. Risk taking and obsession should be experiences in a book! Books don’t always mirror real-life and they shouldn’t!