Let me tell you how I REALLY feel...

The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer is a phenomenon. It's huge. So huge in fact, that it's generated a bit of controversy in my safe orderly world. I've read the books and love them. My dilemma has been whether or not they're age appropriate for my elementary school library.

Should I buy them? I honestly feel that they're perfectly fine in a Jr. High School library. I'd not recommend them for a 5th grade student per se, but is a 6th grader ready for them? Some are probably mature enough for them. There's no sex, drug use, or swearing. They're not overly violent... They certainly aren't as graphic as many of the "classics" I stock on my shelves. Not by a long shot. I mean, have you read Alexandre Dumas? I've been pushing "Count of Monte Cristo" into as many hands as will take it. (But fear not. If I see a child choosing a book that I know is way out of their league, I always steer them to a more appropriate choice).

But I've been thinking about it. A couple of kids have come to ask if I had them. "Not yet. I'm thinking about it still." So they've gone home and read their big sister's or their mother's books. I have purchased the AR tests (I really don't like that program, but don't get me started) as a concession while I ponder the issue. It's going to be a movie. It's going to get even bigger than it is now.

I've even had a discussion or two about it with a couple of teachers, one of whom is probably the most conservative person I've met and won't even read a book to her class with a fairy or a troll in it for fear of parental upset. Well, she loved the first book and came to my house to pick up the second!

I've asked a parent, who has a 6th grade daughter, to read it for her opinion. This woman is so beyond brilliant and intellectual that I admit I often just smile and nod when she talks (she's actually one of my favorite people), that I was certain she would be the one to say they weren't appropriate. She's now on the second book. She did say, however, that she will probably wait to have her daughter read them when she has her first boyfriend. "See Lily? No matter how cute and wonderful you think he is, sometimes people just aren't as they seem!" It's a brilliant strategy actually. But I digress.

Something happened today, however, that helped me instantly make up my mind. I'm buying the books. A parent was talking to one of the teachers about them. She went into fist pounding spasms over how these books are "being read by the "Emo" group at the Jr. High and it's encouraging their radical views! These books can't be here. Not. At. This. School!"

Oh lady, you should have kept your mouth shut. To me, this parent reeks of that woman in Georgia, Laura Mallory, who is seeking to have the Harry Potter book series removed from school libraries. (She actually won the Idiot of the Year Award in 2006, but again, I digress).

You see, I'm a proponent of "banned books." Everyone has the right to read or not to read. You don't want your child reading Harry Potter or Twilight? That's fine with me. That's the parent's call. Tell your kid not to check the book out. But I'm still going to make that book available for those who understand the word "fiction" and for those whose parents feel their child is ready and mature enough to read it.

Everyone should have the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and we stress the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

Phew! I think I need a Diet Dr. Pepper.... ciao.