One of a host of books one Mom wants banned has a lot in common with Twilight. But what makes The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants the antithesis of the vampire quadrilogy is one of the chief reasons parents should be embracing it.

Like Twilight, Ann Brashares Sisterhood is a young adult book with a cult adult following. Like Twilight, it’s spawned two movies.It’s also part of a quartet of books.

And that’s where the comparisons end. Because unlike Twilight (which I admit I love, despite myself), the Sisterhood follows four kick butt girls around the world, focusing on girl power and friendship over boys, boys, boys.

It’s just the sort of series I’ll be saving for my daughter (because,  yes, I fell victim to that cult following too – I have all four on my shelves). So why is one Wisconsin mom on a mission to have it kicked out of her local school library?

For the same reason parents everywhere call for banning books. She’s scared her kid will read something she herself isn’t comfortable with. So she’s got a whole list – including One of Those Hideous Books Where the Mother Dies, a sort of teenaged diary about the life of a teen girl after her mother dies. WISN reports the mother told the school board the book is “inappropriate” for the shelves of the school library.

Her fight earned the school a letter from the book’s author, Sonya Sones, appropriately pointing out of Ann Wentworth is so worried about her kid reading the book, then, well, she shouldn’t LET her.

Because she is, after all, still the parent. Which is the argument we give again and again against potential book banners. Make your own decisions about your kids, and we’ll make our own decisions about ours. If you do decided to allow your kid to read it, read it yourself, make it a conversation starter. And on and on and on.

I haven’t read Sones’ book (although now I’m going to – the chief success of these book banners!), so I personally have zeroed in on the plight of the Sisterhood books on Wentworth’s list. In that case, I can tell you I’d prefer my kid learn about friendship, adversity, divorce, racial issues and everything else that’s packed in there – yes, even s-e-x (when handled in the way it is in the Brashares’ series) as part of her education.

We’re training kids to be grown ups one day. Can we start acting like them ourselves?

Image: Amazon

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