Time Passes

Hmm, it's funny that I couldnt quite remember what I wanted to say here, but here goes.

Today was my little brother's 'Year 6 Graduation' and I decided to attend because, well, you know, parents are busy. I had nothing to do - so why not? End of the year anyway. It also means I can stop walking to pick him up everyday - a cause to be happy about? Well, at the least no longer having to lug my bag to his school and back to the station, then hom (also not so much wandering after school. Awh.)

So I went... It was going well, one of the teachers during their speech suddenly reference Twilight. Oh yes, and it was a male teacher too. Here's the anecdote (In third person): He spotted Twilight sitting on one of the girls' desk so he asked the class 'how many of the girls have read this book?'. About half raised their hands. Then he asked, 'how many boys have read this book?'. None. 'How many boys are thinking of reading this book?' None again. Then he thought, 'I have got to read this book and see why the girls all like it so much.' So that was kind of weird, not to mention the fact of my absolute disapproval of barely teens reading a teenage book - these kids are only about 12, you know. Then he also goes and references it, giving a quote from Bella about how you shouldnt mourn (I forgot the exact quote), and at the end, gives a quote from Edward (Earning an eye-roll from me. Sorry, but true.), that nice quote about the twilight and how it's the end. So that was a strange experience for me, not only had this male teacher read it he'd also referenced it in a speech - odd.

Yes, maybe you don't think so. I'm not even sure I thought it was strange, I remember rolling my eyes a lot. Ah well.

Not so deep. Well, they're just opinoins after all, I guess.

Twilight the Movie

With the Twilight Movie released in America and in the process of being released in other countries around the world, one has to wonder if it's only because of the book that it gets an audience of that size.

Who am I kidding? Of course it is.

With the Twilight Empire probably growing and all the Twilight Fans (I refuse to call or to be called a Twi-hard. Really, I feel like strangling someone when I hear it) ecstatic over the film, it really isn't a wonder it managed to make so much money on the first day.

But is the movie actually any good? Of course it's a matter of opinion, after all, I might absolutely hate it and you absolutely love it, but as a movie adaption one can hope that it at least follows more of the storyline of the books than what happened with Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings.

I can't personally say what happened with Lord of the Rings, since I only ever read the Hobbit and found the writing in my copies of the books way too small to read, but I can say that Harry Potter certainly was ruined by the book to screen adaptions, I'm shocked I even bothered to watch it with the way the last few have just made me want to fling the DVD case across the room, but what can you say? You want to have a look and how they adapted it, and so it also follows that my curiosity is peaked at what the Twilight Movie will look like.

But taking out the large fanbase covering the book, who would decide to just go and watch the movie? I'm betting people would at least go and buy the book first, actually, but who knows? Without the fanbase, the book wouldnt have been adapted anyway, after all. (Musing now... Really though, it's only fans that go and watch it isnt it, or those pressed by media and peers, given the news that it is good or some such. With Lord of the Rings, I havent read it, but I would watch it. Can I say the same for Twilight the Movie?)

I was in the shopping centre/mall today when me and my father sat down to eat and I noticed the woman sitting not too far from us had just bought Twilight (with the movie cover, I have to add, go the original cover!), and was reading it. She looked about mid 20s maybe so it was interesting to see what kind of people read these kinds of books.

With that I return to a previous entry/post of mine about the reading age. Enter the Rollercoaster Chat section (you may or may not know what I mean, I'm not going to be saying), and go towards the Book Chat or General Chat and you will see numerous topics on Twilight. Having said that, the forum is for children from about 11-14 years old, so you have to wonder about the ages of people reading these books. Is it suitable for a 11 year old kid to be quoting 'Why am I covered in feathers?' 'I bit a pillow or two.'? Sure they're not fragile, maybe they shouldnt be shielded from the realities of life, but still the questions stands on whether this book is realy suitable for that kind of audience.

And so there you go. The Twilight Movie comes out in certain countries on the 11th of December. It's probably better to preorder your tickets now if you want to watch it on the release date or all the seats might be taken.

Twilight for Tweens?

Is Twilight really for ten year olds? I think not. A tween is classified as a child within about, oh, 10-ish to a teenager, but in this, I’m going to refer to anyone below 20 (not that I am 20) as a child (that would include myself). Twilight is classified for teenagers for a reason and that means that teenagers (or above) should be the age group to read it. What do I mean by teenagers? By teenagers, I would mean the group that actually has the suffix ‘-teen’ at the end of their age, meaning no one younger than thirteen.

Would these ten year olds even understand the issues within the book? Would they be able to appreciate it? If not, I hardly see the point in reading it. Without the proper maturity or knowledge (I don’t care how mature you think you are), it isn’t a book suitable for children not yet a teenager. A book about romance, vampires (and therefore violence) and ... well, sex? Isn’t this the kind of stuff we don’t want to get negatively influenced by? We can say that children in different countries are subjected to different influences, from the media and from school, but are they really ready for these things? They may pick up notions of sex and violence from the mass media, but we don’t need to add to it.

Don’t get me wrong, I rather like the book and the series, but I really don’t find it appropriate for children of such a young age to be reading this sort of books. What prompted this? Well this was prompted by listening to the Hot 30 the other day, which just also happened to have on the American Top 40 (I don’t know why. The radio station does as they like.) I chanced upon an interview of Stephenie Meyer and Robert Pattinson. The radio host (whose name escapes me at the moment, I apologise) mentioned a chat with Barack Obama the other day where Mr Obama mentioned that his ten-year old daughter had just started on the series. At that point, I did actually raise my eyebrows. As a book targeted for an audience of teenagers, would a 10-year old be a suitable age to read this book?

It’s not only the case in America, I know. I know that here (wherever I may be), children who have not passed the grade of 6 are reading these books. This was the final straw prompting this which could be called a rant. Even children of the eighth grade would be justified in reading the series, but children below sixth grade I believe certainly aren’t. Of course in this frame of reference I am using the common ages here where 16/17 years is the average age for ‘Senior Year’ and 17/18 is the average age for Graduating. You can work on the maths yourself if you like.

Is Twilight really suitable for tweens? I still say no. If you don’t mind and are happy to let your kids read it, go ahead, I still believe it is unsuitable and unnecessary. There’s always time to read it later on, it’s not going to go anywhere. It might go out of date, but why should that matter? (Anyway, shouldn’t these sorts of things become timeless? Like the vampires themselves?)

I believe it should be read just as it was released, and certainly those who joined the fan club early on have the right idea (I admit I only got into reading it after Eclipse was released), but time should be taken between books so that even if one started reading it at 10 years old, by the time they are done, they are about 14 and are able to appreciate these books properly.