I teach evening parenting classes in a public grade school. There was no plot, theme, or character development to speak of. The sole point of the book was to advertise the television show. It's one thing for publishers to print this sort of thing, and another matter entirely for libraries and schools to carry and teach them. This creates a self-perpetuating cycle, and is a disservice to our young people.
Children are more impressionable than adults.
What they read, see, and hear goes inside and becomes part of their inner world. They don't have the intellectual filters that adults do. If our children are reading about monsters and aliens, these are the images they are internalizing. Timeless, beautiful literature has the opposite effect. When we read literature peopled with characters who struggle with life's difficulties and overcome themselves and their circumstances, this presents us with a powerful blueprint, and most importantly, with hope.