Australian schools ban Twilight series
A number of Australian primary schools have reportedly banned Stephanie Meyer’s hit Twilight vampire book series because the content is too sexual and goes against religious beliefs.
In Australia, primary schools teach children up to the age of about 12, after which they move onto secondary school. In some other countries primary schools are described as elementary schools.
The Twilight series has sold over 70 million copies worldwide, according to Wikipedia, and is being made into a film series, with audiences enthralled by the love story between American teen Bella and Edward Cullen, a former human who was transformed into a vampire.
But, reports Australian newspaper The Daily Telegraph, a number of primary schools in New South Wales have banned the series or restricted it to older readers:
“Librarians have stripped the books from shelves in some junior schools because they believe the content is too sexual and goes against religious beliefs … Santa Sabina College at Strathfield was so concerned about the Twilight craze that teachers ran a seminar for Year 6 students to discuss sexual and supernatural themes in the books.”
Commentary
I don’t have much idea what books are and aren’t allowed in Australian primary schools, although I would assume that most content which would fall under the Australian ‘M’ classification would not be encouraged, for the simple reason that content at those levels is not recommended for those under 15 years of age. This would preclude all Australian primary school students.
The question, I guess, is does Twilight fall into this category?
If you read the guidelines for the classification of publications in Australia, a task carried out by the Australian Classification Board, it seems fairly clear that literature falling into the unrestricted category (which includes the M rating as an option) must be discreet in its depictions of sex and violence, and such depictions must be low impact.
Does Twilight contain low impact depictions of sex and violence? Undoubtedly, by Australian standards, yes. There are no real overt sex scenes; Twilight is more about romance. And while there is violence in the book, it’s not really graphic; in fact sometimes it’s almost cartoonish (vampires fighting isn’t that scary compared to many modern day movies kids watch).
However, the fact remains that the books do contain some level of sex and violence. Thus, they’re probably not that appropriate, as The Daily Telegraph mentions, for many primary school students.
Of course, some primary school students might consider Twilight a bit lightweight. I remember reading The Lord of the Rings and Ender’s Game when I was 11 or 12. The sorts of content in those books is a lot more psychologically disturbing and adult than you would find in Twilight, although I can’t see them ever being banned. Of course, I borrowed the books myself from our city library or my father’s collection, not from my school.
One final note: it’s not really clear from the article exactly where schools feel Twilight would offend religious beliefs. But I would suggest while banning books containing sexual behaviour could be legitimate, banning books because they go against religious beliefs is a whole other kettle of fish. Touchy ground, that.
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Santa sabina is a very religious catholic school that prides itself on raising good clean girls. I believe that it is only a few schools that have baned the book and santa sabina is being singled out for whatever reason.
Yeah, it’s definitely not *all* schools, just a few that are known about.
I do not live in Australia and I agree and disagree. I LOVE the twilight books and am a mother of two young girls myself, one 5 1/2 and one 2. These books certainly are for a mature audience if we’re basing the decision on sex and violence. Would I want my 10 year old reading them? probably not. That is a decision taht should be left to me as a parent at the time whether i feel my child is able to comprehend and understand the content of the book. All kids are different at different ages and I agree that they should not be available at the schools leaving it up to the parents to decide for themselves based on their child’s maturity. I do not however think the books should be pulled for religious reasons. as it was said that just opens up a whole new can of worms I remember the controversy that went on with the Harry Potter books and thinking to myself ( having read every single one of them) I would be glad my kids had found a book to read that they enjoyed. I would have no problem with either of girls reading Twilight series when they are old enough to understand the books content. I am a religious person but I think some of society is trying to filter things out too much for our children based on that aspect alone. Kids need to be given choices.
True, I think the decision should be up to the parents. In high school I had already ploughed through much of my father’s science fiction collection, which wasn’t short on sex, violence and disturbing themes. But I was a reader ahead of my age; most of my peers weren’t.
Lord of the Rings and Ender’s Game have the redeeming quality of being worth reading, which I would imagine doesn’t hurt.
Well, it’s hard to say about Twilight! I have read snatches of the first Twilight book because my wife has read the series. She burned through them pretty quick, but I think a lot of people acknowledge they’re a guilty pleasure; not quite as intellectual books as others out there. The ongoing lines about Edward’s manly chest kind of give it away :)
But yes, LOTOR and Ender’s Game are definitely worth reading ;)
It’s silly to call this banning. It’s primary school. Twilight is not appropriate for, and not targeted at, that readership. If this was a story about high school libraries, it might have some validity, but seriously, this is just pointless sensationalisation over nothing.
I have read the twilight series and I must say the sexual content is very light considering it’s YA fiction targeted at teenagers, who have seen their share of sex on TV or the movies. and instead of panicking about children coming across a sex scene in a book I think we should be more concerned about providing them with a good sexual education to start with.
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