I love this post for so many reasons! Mostly I guess because it's full of great suggestions.

Fuse, I'm so glad you brought this up. Finger on the pulse! (so to speak...)

At least a couple of the kids in my school library have reportedly been reading these books (we don't have them in our k-4 library). A couple others, who have been hearing about them, have expressed interest to me. I do not tell them they should not read them. I do not say they are for older kids, giving them that irresistable glamour. I have told them that the books are largely about a teenage girl who really, really wants to have sex with a boy. Noses wrinkle, and they ask for something else.

I'm not saying that will, or even perhaps should, dissuade all youngsters, but I think it helps kids who are not developmentally ready to cut through the mystique and buzz they hear.

Of course, the writing is really, truly awful on many levels. I have talked to some other kids about that. It helps to be specific about the limitations.

The Twilight books are really just teenage vampire/werewolf bodice rippers. That's the genius and the limitation.

Thanks for the suggestions of alternate reads, Fuse. Very helpful. Have you read Annette Curtis Klause's The Silver Kiss? It's been a long time since I read it, but I remember it as a good, atmospheric, vampire/danger/romantic read.

Irene Fahrenwald

<i>I have told them that the books are largely about a teenage girl who really, really wants to have sex with a boy. Noses wrinkle, and they ask for something else.</i>

Ha!! Irene, I also have a K-5 library and am frequently asked for it (followed by, "Ms. Claire, is Twilight BANNED from our library?" -- so much for my BBW lessons). It's never occurred to me to sum it up quite like this. I'm totally going to take this line and use it next year.

Fuse: I love the breakdown of categories! I'll be taking your same "If..." headers and expanding them to hand out to parents too. Thanks for this post :).

I have to disagree with your recommendation of The Hunger Games. First of all, for different reasons, I think it is a stretch for a ten-year-old. I mean, it is very violent. I did give it to a few of my students, but warned them about the violence; they were fine and loved it, but none of them were Twilight readers. Secondly, if the reason that she (and, in my experience, the ten-year-old readers were all female) wants to read it because "everyone else is" I'd say let her. As with Harry Potter, only the real thing is going to work in that particular case.

You could probably have an interesting compare and contrast of Hunger Games and Twilight in terms of violence. I'd argue that in the first HG the violence is generally off-screen or quick (with the incredibly notable exception of that death scene near the end and even that we only *gulp* hear), but compared to Bella's birth scene . . . oogy.

My point about Hunger Games is that if she wants what everyone else is reading, very soon THAT is what's going to be what everyone else is reading. And then I'll have to write a post called "Help! My Ten-Year-Old Wants to Read The Hunger Games". And around and around it goes.

I already said that it probably won't make much of a difference anyway, but if I had to hand a ten-year-old Twilight or HG, I'm going with HG. You can't tell me there isn't enough romance in that for Twilight lovers anyway. Just read the comments on my Hunger Games review. All they can talk about is Gale vs. Peeta.

Any recommendations for adult readers? I haven't read the Twilight books, but my teachers are often asking me for recommendations after they've read them...

Tell them to read the Anne Rice books, starting with Interview With a Vampire. This series should keep them busy for a while. Very atmospheric and sensual, and with a much better vampire mythology than Twilight. The first book can almost pass for an existential novel (it's my favorite), but then you get to the vampire Lestat books and it all really starts to rock 'n roll. They are a bit of a guilty pleasure, but still leagues ahead of the Twilight books in terms of writing skill. Although, admittedly, you could probably make it a drinking game by downing a shot every time Rice uses the word "preternatural."

Also, the Christopher Moore books, Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story and You Suck: A Love Story. These have a sense of humor about themselves, unlike the others, but they are really fun.

Irene Fahrenwald

Of course, you could recommend that they read Romeo and Juliet along with Wuthering Heights. These are Bella's favorite books, to which she compares to her life in books two and three (ad nauseam). But that depends on their willingness to tackle the classics. They could go with Pride and Prejudice. Ahhhhh, the irresistable, infuriating, Mr. Darcy!
Irene

In my school only a handful of kids were reading THE HUNGER GAMES in 4th grade (of the advanced reader sort)so it had no cred; on the other hand, "everyone" WAS seemingly reading TWILIGHT. So from the POV of the ten-year-old girl who wants to read what she sees all her friends reading (and talking about), I don't see HG as a solution. The kids I knew were not interested in reading the next hot thing, but what in their environment was hot NOW. And I still stand by my feeling that HG is potentially nightmare-inducing for ten-year-olds and so I'd be careful about recommending to that age group. (As for some of the other suggestions here --- I thought we were talking ten-year-olds. Anne Rice? )

No, no, the person recommending Anne Rice books was mentioning them in response to the previous comment, which asked for books to suggest to adult readers. That aside, I do love the breakdown of 'If they want to read it because of X, recommend this. If because of Y, recommend that.' A good solid approach that can be applied to other problematic requests, too.

Ah. In that case I second the Moore books (for adults)!

As I parent and school librarian I've never told my daughter she couldn't read a book. I have discouraged her with point by point reasons and put her off though. The Clique books are a perfect example. She had to read them, just "had" to read them around the age of 10. I was able to put it off for about a year and 1/2 until I realized we'd both reached the limit, so I bought her the first book, which she read and then the second book. After finishing the second book she lost interest and told me that they really weren't that good. Sometimes we have to let them find out for themselves. While this game is a little more difficult with my 5th-8th grade students, it often works as well.

For older readers who enjoyed the vampire stuff about Twilight, and are missing Buffy, I recommend Sunshine (Robin McKinley). It rates right up there with her earlier works on the awesomeness scale. The prose is definitely denser than Twilight, though.

i LURV this post, betsy.

i answer as a parent, not as a librarian. suggesting alternatives is a great strategy (and i love these suggestions!) but the kid can borrow or get the book without your blessing, so i recommend sharing your concerns with your kid, then talking about the book with him or her afterward. i also won't BUY my kid books i object to. (pony-crazed princesses, anyone?) if my kid gets it from the library or borrows from another kid, i'm not gonna confiscate it.

example: my 7-yr-old is prone to nightmares but can't put down what terrifies her. after she read The Witches -- i kept trying to get her to stop reading when it was clear she was completely freaked out by it, but she HAD TO FINISH -- she didn't sleep through the night for two weeks. she loved the first harry potter book and wanted to read the whole series, but i really wanted to stop her after book 4 -- i thought that was about as dark as she could handle. she COULDN'T stop -- and i get that. she read the entire series, and we talked, and she's OK. i DO think she would have gotten more out of the later books if she'd waited (same is true with The Phantom Tollbooth -- my husband read it to her when she was five and she enjoyed it, but i really think its nuances about words and language are lost on kids who aren't reading independently yet). she wants to read Elsewhere by gabrielle zevin (which she read a bit of over my shoulder on an airplane) and If I Stay by gayle forman (which she read a bit of on my computer -- gayle is a good friend and it in draft) but i said no...even tho i think we adults are more devastated by death and loss than little kids are. YA here is on a high shelf -- she can get it if she stands on a chair, but she hasn't tried so far.

Thank you, Betsy! My nine-year-old surprised me this weekend by saying that he didn't really want me to read the book he was reading ("There's a Hair on My Toothbrush," by Jerry Spinelli), because he was afraid I would ban him from finishing it. He had come home from a party saying he wanted to read Spinelli, Spinelli, Spinelli, and I picked up a couple that he had mentioned, skimming them and not seeing any serious inappropriate content.

I told him I would never "ban" a book, but I might suggest to him that one is too mature for him and he should wait to read it. Then he, my husband and I all discussed it last night, my husband making the point that he should never be afraid to tell us about something he's reading, and that if he has questions about something in a book, he should ask us about it, not his friends (this one mentions periods, French kissing, and virgins, but apparently brief references, no details).

I asked if he wanted to know what periods are, and he said no, not really, not now. Which is fine - I told him when we have a more detailed puberty talk, we'd talk about it (they show movies in school next year in fourth grade about the boys to the boys, and in fifth grade they have a movie about girls that they show the boys).

Meanwhile, I'll keep an eye on the Spinelli books - they seem great, I just need to keep an eye on the age appropriateness, these are slightly more mature than I prefer him to read but it's not a big deal. I told him that he shouldn't be reading yet things that had descriptions of puberty-type-things, feelings about sex and such, and specifically mentioned Judy Blume - I said there are a couple of her books I think are too mature for him (I was thinking of Then Again, Maybe I Won't as well as Margaret) and would probably be good in the fifth grade, but that her others should be fine now. If he wants to read those, it'd be OK with me though I wouldn't love it - it might mean he was ready for them, if he wanted to read them? He himself brought up Twilight as an example of what he shouldn't read yet (he doesn't particularly want to anyway).

I feel like this is tricky, b/c I don't want to censor him - I told him that some people ask for books to be removed from libraries or black out some words, and I think that's WRONG - but I do want to help him not go too far beyond his maturity level. His friends are reading Spinelli (at least one friend) and he wants to read them, I think it's OK if a little old for him.

I should get the title right: it's "Who Put That Hair on My Toothbrush?"

He is also reading things like "The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy" (which he raced through and loved, they're page-turners if nothing else), "All Quiet on the Western Front," (a friend's favorite book, which my husband thinks he read in 4th grade too?), and earlier this year, most of the Andrew Clements books. He started "Number the Stars," which I wasn't crazy about (just because I had hoped books addressing the intensity of the Holocaust could wait a couple years - I expect he'll read most of them then). But I was pleased to hear that he stopped reading it, "It wasn't grabbing me after the first couple chapters, mom, my friends too." I think it's a terrific book, just would be happier if he waits a year or two. Wouldn't want him reading Anne Frank yet either, and they don't cover the Holocaust in Hebrew school until 5th grade, which seems about right.

I haven't read too many vampire books, but I think that after The Silver Kiss, there didn't seem to be much more to be said. But I wouldn't recommend it to a 10 year old (the violence and the romance). I wouldn't recommend the Hunger Games either. There are so many other grim visions of the future that are still accessible.
For the romance aspect, may I recommend the Rope Trick by Lloyd Alexander?

What I find is that if tweens read Twilight and sequels, they then want more vampire books, and a lot of the other vampire books out there are much darker and more sexual than Meyers' books, so what do you recommend THEN? I try to steer them back toward fantasy/adventure books with some romance, e.g., Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith, fairy tale retelling like Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier, and Dunkle's books, mentioned above. Also Margaret Mahy's classic, Changeover. I hate to see kids miss out on the rich literature for 9- to 12-year-olds because they've jumped to the most mature YA out there--there will be plenty of time to read that and adult fiction a bit later!

You know, I came this close to mentioning "The Changeover" in my review, but didn't just because there hasn't been a decent reprint of it in a while. I booktalked it once and almost had them, but lost them when they saw the cover. Grr. Why has this not been republished yet?

Good suggestions. I don't read much cool vampire fare, so I don't know what else to offer. Aside from the aforementioned Vladimir Tod, of course.

Still mulling this over...Gail Carson Levine's book, Fairest, might attract a few of the tweeners interested in Twilight. It's got magic, romance, and an underdog heroine (easily identified with) who triumphs. No vampires, but there is a very attractive, seemingly unattainable prince. So there's that plain girl, gorgeous guy thing happening...

Irene Fahrenwald

Hi Betsy,
What great replies. I'm not a parent or a librarian, but an editor/copyeditor of YA books. When I was a child, in a little town in rural Louisiana, my mother told the town's librarian that she allowed me to check out anything I wanted, from the children's or the adult's section. I read many books that I had no idea what was going on, but years later loved Wilkie Collins's Moonstone (I had chosen it at ten because I liked the title). My favorite was picking out Dreiser's Sister Carrie because I was a Catholic schoolgirl and wanted to read a novel about a nun. Well . . . She wasn't a nun or a sister. But I didn't know, really, until I was thirty and picked it up again.

What about the My Sister the Vampire series for youngsters looking for vampire fare? I haven't read them, but they're marketed to the 9-12 year old crowd.

Someone asked about books for adult readers:
I would suggest Patricia Briggs' "Mercy Thompson" series, starting with "Moon Called". She combines Vampires, Werewolves and Mercy is a Native American shape shifter in a very modern, very good series. Like the "Southern Vampire" stories, the 'fey' are trying to 'come out' into the public eye in this series.

Anyway, enjoy. Everyone to whom I've recommended the series has loved it.

I am a 22-year-old girl who has read the first two books in the Twilight series, and to be honest, there isn't much in those that I think could harm a 10-year-old any more than watching something like Gossip Girl. I was recently with a 10-year-old girl who was reading the books and who was really engrossed in them, but what she was getting out of them was very different to what I was getting out of them - she was looking at the kids' relationships with their parents, social relations at school etc. Her mom was also reading the books simultaneously, which I felt was important, as she could give her daughter the necessary guidance when it came to any sensitive issues. Kids do not want to read about other kids their age, they are interested in what it will be like when they grow up, and reading a book, where the information is presented in words and they can use their own points of reference is less damaging than watching TV where it is presented with no room for their own interpretations. I think what is most important is that kids are reading at a time when the internet and TV is taking over as the preferred medium for entertainment...as long as they are not reading highly inappropriate or disturbing material, which Twilight is not (it is meant for young people, after all), any reading should be encouraged.

This is what I posted on another forum, re: thoughts on "Twilight":

1) Vampire/human love stories have been around for hundreds of years, so we can find both classics (e.g., "Dracula") and contemporary literature to recommend, as well as TV shows on DVD (Buffy/Angel; Dark Shadows; Forever Knight; Moonlight; True Blood (R); etc. -- even "Highlander: the series" which deals with immortals).

2) Just because they are popular stories does not mean that they lack any intrinsic literary value. However, it does not mean that they contain any, either. Each work must be judged on their own merits.

3) Introduction to the genre can lead to a broadening of a teen's outlook on books, and lead to a path of multi-varied reading experiences.

4) Vampire stories today are radically different from vampire stories of the past. Whereas in the past, authors felt they should be true to the accepted 'canon' of Vampire lore (fear of -- or loss of power -- in sunlight; insatiable lust for blood; brooding manner; hatred of garlic; fear of crucifix and holy water; etc.) today's authors can do away with any or all of the above and still claim to be writing a 'vampire' story!

5) If it leads a teen to reading, it cannot be ALL bad.

6) Like the t-shirt says, the true conclusion of Twilight is "...then Buffy staked Edward. The End."

i am a 12 year old and i love them except if he is 9 dont let him read 4 breaking dawn it sex in it

hi umm actually i wanted to know if i could read true blood. i am 10 and my mom just wants to know if it has any thing thats way worse then twilight becuase we saw the movie and we read all 4 books.

im not sure if you could tttttttttttttttttt so ask some one else

I am just turning 11 and I have read twilight and new moon and eclipse but my mummy says I can't read breaking dawn as it has sex in it but she says when I am 12 I can. They are really good.

Frankly, the books that 'Tru Blood" is based on are the Charlaine Harris "Southern Vampire" books, and they are quite graphic in places. Definitely written for adults, not children or YA. That's not a judgment, just fact. You'll have to work with your parents on that issue.

I've only seen two episodes of the HBO series, and that was enough for me.

warning: snarky comment ahead, and I know I'm going to get grief for it:

When did we leave proper grammar behind? I know this is a forum, and it's great that teens want to participate, but perhaps we could leave the text-talk and practice proper spelling and sentence construction, punctuation and capitalization? Some mistakes are going to be unavoidable, just because of the medium, but, sometimes the style looks deliberate, almost like an adult trying to look like a child typing (like the backwards "R" in "Toys 'R Us").

End social commentary.

OK, im 10 and i've read twilight it's a great book and really the fears are not true

Anyway,girls at my school have read breaking dawn and they are fine (well theyhaven't ever been ice..) i've read it too but i diden;'t like the 3rd.

Anna,
These rules will help your grade point average:

1)Titles of books are always capitalized.
2)Pay attention to proper placement of apostrophes in contractions, that is words such as "didn't",
3)Personal pronouns are always capitalized ("I'm", "I've")
4) Turn your spell-checker ON.
5) Put a single space between words.
6) ask an adult to proof-read your writing before either turning it in to your teacher or posting to a message board/forum.

I'm glad you enjoyed reading the "Twilight" series.

"The Director"

I am handicapped by the fact that I'm recommending my own book, but I can't help it. When penning "How to Catch and Keep a Vampire" I thought a lot about what I would have wanted my own teenage daughters to read on this subject. (The book is for 15 and up.) I wanted it to be funny, and suspenseful, and entertaining...but I also wanted it to deal earnestly with teens trying to understand and deal with their intense emotions about vampires. As a vampirophile myself, I wasn't about to discourage their love of these beings, but I also think it's important to talk about balance, self-esteem, autonomy, good values, and responsible sexuality when on this topic. If any impartial reader has read my book and would like to comment, please do!

--Diana Laurence, author of "How to Catch and Keep a Vampire" (www.howtocatchandkeepavampire.com)

let her read it. its a good book

Pffft, let them read Twilight as much as they want I say - that is as long as they don't take it too seriously, understand that the writing is mediocre at best, and read some other books on the side (eg. your recommendations)

im 10 and my teacher in 5th does a project on twilight the first book it not bad its cool i hate how parents cant let kids express themseleves plz many people think im teachs pet really im opposite

at least she wants to read somthing. unlike my sister