If you love YA books and authors and if you also love to help people in need, you can combine the two by participating in Save the Book Babe. It’s a benefit for a bookseller with cancer. You can bid online for books, or, if you’re going to be around Tempe, Arizona on April 4, you can buy tickets to the event.

Stephenie Meyers will be there, which doesn’t move me in any way, but Shannon Hale is emceeing. That’s worth something.

I read Twilight to see what the fuss was about. Couldn’t even bring myself to write a review. I thought it was terribly boring through the first 280 pages and I thought Bella was stupid the whole way through. Edward, also, was less than to be desired, but at least he wasn’t quite as stupid as Bella. Then the last half of the book actually had a little plot going on and it held my interest. Not enough to make me read the rest of the series.

My son went on to book two and finished it, though, and my daughter has finished book three and is eagerly awaiting book four.

Why do kids like this stuff? I think my daughter and the girls in my youth group at church like the story because it’s a love story (the first book, at least, was a lust story, not a love story, but the girls think it’s a love story). But what does love have to do paranormal books? I thought the paranormal part of Twilight was just a vessel to carry a story of forbidden fruit–dangerous love.

But the publishers seem to be jumping on the paranormal bandwagon. Zombie movies are in demand (I am the mother of a teen-aged son, believe me, zombies are sizzling right now) and books with zombies, vampires and werewolves are seeing success.

What is up with this? Anyone care to tell me? Because I can see no attraction in zombies at all. Is it the danger, the gore? What is it that kids love about the paranormal?

I’m so overloaded.

I’m so sorry. I did pick a winner for the last contest. Since I was too busy to go around inviting people to the contest, and threatening, begging, and nagging my friends to write poems, and I only ended up with two entries which were both great and happened to be penned by cousins, I couldn’t’ decide on a winner. So I put you both in a hat and drew. Marie, you win.

Do you want me to mail the book to you or do you have someone else you want me to mail it to?

And now, about Twilight. I’ve been meaning to put these links in for a week or so. first the Guardian. If they hate Twilight we know it’s probably really a great book.

And then there are the Evangelicals who hate Harry Potter and a lot of other books and are sure the children reading these books will become wiccans or vampires.

I have to admit I’m skeptical when I read their reasoning. I think they are straining gnats and swallowing camels much of the time.

I haven’t read the Twilight books yet because the idea of vampire love is such a turn-off to me. But I have decided I must. I ordered the first from Amazon a couple of weeks ago and my son read it and loved it. I got ten pages in and had to put it down from boredom. But I will pick it up and finish it because I need to find out what the hype is about. And I need to see what my son just read and discuss it with him. I have no choice now.

I’ll let you know what I discover.