‘Twilight’ books banned from Oz primary schools for being too racy

MELBOURNE - Aussie primary school students have been banned from reading Stephenie Meyer’s smash hit ‘Twilight’ books, as they are said to be too racy.

According to the Daily Telegraph, librarians in some junior schools have even removed the books from shelves, as they believe the content is too sexual and goes against religious beliefs.

They have even asked parents not to let their children bring their copies of the novels, which explore the stormy love affair between a teenage girl and a vampire, to school.

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.

“We don’t have a policy of censorship but the issues in the Twilight series are quite different from the Harry Potter classics,” News.com.au quoted the school’s head librarian Helen Schutz as saying.

“It is not available in our junior library for these reasons,” she said.

She said that younger kids read the books, which have been turned into a smash hit movie, so they could “talk the talk and are part of the cool crowd”.

But teachers addressed the primary students because they were concerned they might be too young to deal with the adult themes.

“There was a great level of concern from the teachers and we anticipated there would be concern from the parents,” Schutz explained.

“We wanted to make sure they realise it’s fictitious and ensure they don’t have a wrong grasp on reality,” she said.

The four Twilight books trace the love affair between Bella Swan, who moves to a new school, and Edward Cullen, a mysterious heartthrob who belongs to a family of vampires.

Catholic Education Office spokesman Mark Rix said individual schools had to decide whether the books were suitable.

“It comes down to the discretion of the school to keep an eye on what the kids read,” Rix said.

“Some primary students are not ready to read Twilight. That said, some secondary students may not be either,” he added.

Balmoral’s Queenwood School for Girls head librarian Heather Voskyl said only senior school students were allowed to borrow the books from the library.

“There isn’t a lot written for the Year 4 to 5 age group so they are quickly pushed into higher reading age groups. There is a mismatch between their level of maturity and their level of reading,” she stated.

St Anthony’s Catholic primary school in Picton has also asked parents not to let their children bring the book to school.

Emmi Payten, 10, from Bellevue Hill, has read three quarters of the first Twilight book.

“I know it’s all just fantasy. I think it’s really good, really interesting and bits of it are really funny,” she stated. (ANI)