{"id":63162,"date":"2010-07-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/the-undead-bring-reading-to-life\/"},"modified":"2010-07-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-09T00:00:00","slug":"the-undead-bring-reading-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2010\/07\/the-undead-bring-reading-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The undead bring reading to life"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. – July 9, 2010 – Vampires battling with werewolves. Forbidden romance. Life or immortality, love or friendship. It\u2019s safe to say The Twilight Saga has a little bit for everyone, which explains the throngs of moviegoers who made their way to theaters over the weekend to catch a story they already know, as the latest installment Eclipse<\/i> hit the big screen. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cMoms and daughters are reading the books together, and the war between werewolves and vampires draws in boys as well,\u201d according to 溏心vlog免费B站 Library and Information Studies instructor Aaron Coutu. \u201cThe characters in the Twilight story tie in with what people are going through in their lives. These are feelings that do transcend different age levels. There are themes in there anyone can relate to: moving to a new area, going to a new school, being afraid of an attraction for someone else. These are core emotions for teens and adults.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nAs a result, the books are affecting relationships between adults and teens who are finding a common ground in their love for the books. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe success of Harry Potter and Twilight has implemented a lot of bonding between parents and children,\u201d Coutu said. \u201cMoms and daughters are reading the books together and then talking about them. What\u2019s interesting is the number of male readers of different ages. There is enough of an appeal to Twilight because of the war between werewolves and vampires to draw in all readers.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nAt the same time, Coutu and Gale Eaton, director of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, both have concerns about the lack of depth of the Twilight characters. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cThe whole idea behind Bella\u2019s character is that, \u2018girl sees boy, girls wants boy, and girl gives everything up to be with boy\u2019 \u201d Eaton said. \u201cBella is not interested in a career path, or going to college. There are concerns over what message that is sending to the millions of young readers following the story.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nEaton points out how the Twilight series pays homage to literary classics with, references to Romeo and Juliet and Wuthering Heights, but isn’t particularly new. \u201cThe Twilight stories are effective in linking its own circumstances to classics, which is a sneaky way to get kids to become interested in classics,\u201d she said. \u201cThe story itself is so incredibly old-fashioned. Bella is so committed to and obsessed with Edward that she has difficulty seeing a world beyond him.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nThe success of the Twilight series follows the path blazed by J.K. Rowlings\u2019 Harry Potter series, another storyline that features several male and female protagonists. However, Eaton sees far greater imagination and value in the Potter series. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cFor one thing, Harry Potter is a fantasy version of Charles Dickens,\u201d Eaton said. \u201cYou have an orphan who is terribly treated. He meets people with funny names and peculiar eccentricities, and there was a lot of imagination used in creative the world in which the characters live.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nAs for the next potential craze for young adults, Coutu points to Suzanne Collins\u2019 series The Hunger Games<\/i>. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cMore and more, we are seeing publishers let authors write stories that are not necessarily targeting one specific audience,\u201d Coutu said. \u201cThese books have male and female characters that don\u2019t always fit into stereotypes. \u201cLiterature has a way of reflecting what is going on in society. As a result, what we are seeing are not as many boy books or girl books, but rather, books that are well rounded.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nCoutu said the state of the book industry is directly tied to the film industry. He takes it as a good sign that more and more new movie releases stem from novels. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cPeople were worried about the death of books,\u201d Coutu said. \u201cWhether it was because of the availability of new technologies or other reasons, we assumed that young people would not be reading as much as previous generations.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nInstead, he is seeing an upward trend in people, male and female, getting together to read. <\/p>\n


\n\u201cIt bodes well for our future that literacy is moving forward,\u201d Coutu said. \u201cPrior to the phenomenon of these books, I don\u2019t know that we saw the same level of reading as a form of socialization. These stories have made reading part of what more people are doing for fun. They are not relying just on TV and the movies.\u201d <\/p>\n

(Coutu, who teaches courses in Public Library Human Services, General Public Library Services and Reading Interest in Young Adults at 溏心vlog免费B站, is the Young Adult Librarian at Greenville Public Library in Smithfield. He also is the chair of the Rhode Island Teen Book Award, collaborative project of the Rhode Island Education Media Association (RIEMA) and the Rhode Island Library Assocation (RILA). The group promotes quality literature for teens ages 12 to 18.)<\/i>\n\t<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. – July 9, 2010 – Vampires battling with werewolves. Forbidden romance. Life or immortality, love or friendship. It\u2019s safe to say The Twilight Saga has a little bit for everyone, which explains the throngs of moviegoers who made their way to theaters over the weekend to catch a story they already know, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}