I keep hearing about Twilight being a good book to teach kids about romance, but personally I don't get it. Would you or did you read it to your kids? Why or why not?

Would I read a series that is about a creepily unhealthy love which at one point gets destroyed when he leaves, then tries to commit suicide, comes back, fights her best friends constantly for her, & then finally marries her & they don't go to college & immediately have a kid?

No I wouldn't.

Romance? What kind of Jerry Springer episode would cater to a teenage crushfest/hormonal triangle?

Thats right, even Springer wouldn't touch it...

Aren't you glad Meyers did though? ;) jk

Um. No.

Goodness, Edward is a terrible person to emulate, and any relationship like Edward and Bella's is a dangerous one. When Bella first sees him, he looks at her as though he wants her to die. He is rude to her, but she is interested in him because he's awful to her. She turns down the three other boys in her school who are much better options-- one of them because he was the "helpful chess club type". Edward is controlling-- he forces Bella into his car, he reads the minds of everyone she talks to so she has no privacy, and he watches her as she sleeps. He cannot control his temper, and almost kills people he's simply angry with.

Bella lies to her father when she goes out with Edward, giving many alternate stories about where she is and whom she's with. On their first date, she tells no one she's meeting him, and then wanders alone into the secluded woods with him. And then later in the series, Edward leaves Bella, and she sits in the woods for an inordinate amount of time without food because she is depressed and wants him to come back.

I wouldn't. Because I would want my kids to grow up literate, not trash reading vamp-porn junkies. I was fine not reading poorly written housewife fantasies, and my kids will be too. They can read Dracula if they want romantic and tragic vampires.

Before I read the books, I'm sure that would have been a flat out "No". I think that this can actually benefit young children, though. You can show them through this series what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. There are things that Edward and Jacob do that are just wrong. They also do things that are good, though.