I was exploring Amazon.com when I noticed that their bestselling books in the science fiction and fantasy genre is a young adult series involving vampires. Vampires.

I remember young adult books. I used to read them when I was, well, a young adult.

I don’t seem to remember vampires being involved.

Then again, I used to read stuff by Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, and Ellen Conford. They wrote funny, sweet, or sometimes romantic books that dealt with the subject of being a teenager, like a light romantic comedy, which may or may not have a little bit of magic.

If there had been any teenage vampire books, I might have balked at them. They really weren’t my thing. In any case, the closest we had to such books back then was the Christopher Pike books, which my sister loved—horror, mystery, and suspense for the young adult. She was also into V.C. Andrews at the time, whose books were almost gothic-southern with the weirdness, tragedies, and soap opera feel. I used to think, “Gee, she must be twisted to like that stuff.”

But now, kids are reading about vampires and zombies, werewolves and witches, demons and angels, and all kinds of dark creatures. Compare that to my princesses and fairy godmothers, and it’s plain to see, either kids are less innocent these days, or I’ve always just been very vanilla.

I can’t quite decide yet which.

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