Conflicting emotions

I'm sure every librarian and educator who has had any dabblings in feminist theory whilst learning all about literature has some serious mixed feelings about those darn Twilight books. I'm not going to waste too much time discussing my fears of what we're teaching young ladies to value; plenty of other people have done as much. I will comment quickly on how visually tempting those lovely covers are for teenaged girls of all ages and genders:























But I'd like to commend Syp at Bio Break for this amazingly frightening find. Check it out:























My initial reaction is one of disgust, not only for the rather icky image, but more so for the apparent need to label anything and everything with the trendiest brand name. (I wonder how Ms. Meyer feels about this.) HOWEVER. I am also conflicted, because HECK - why not package the great classics with some shiny new dust jackets that the young'uns might actually feel drawn to? It's only a modest leap from the librarian's "If you liked THIS (stupid) book, try THIS (wonderfully written and decidedly canonized) book!!" pitch in the YA stacks.

However, this all may very well be a vain discussion at this point. My 12-year-old YA consultant recently informed me that she's over Twilight. "I've outgrown it, really," she said. Me too.