To say no to the 6th Harry Potter book...

[TabbyTigger]

DD is 5. She’s just finished the first five Harry Potter books and, obviously, now wants to move onto the 6th. However from what I and other DCs remember, this one has more mature themes (romance/more detailed deaths) and is generally more complex. AIBU to ask her to wait a year or so before reading it or should I let her try and see how she does?

*Serious question. These 5 year olds with advanced comprehension skills and emotional maturity, are they aware of various world events such 9/11, the holocaust, current events? Do they read adult newspapers?

If not, why not?*

I have always struggled to imagine a child who couldn't comprehend harry potter, the stories to me are really quite simplistic with the motives of most easily understandable. There are things born out of romantic love which is obviously the hardest for a pre-puberty child to understand as that they have absolutely no personal reference for beyond the idea that adults bond to make children in a different way to others. That is hardly a major theme and Snape is pretty much described as outright what it is, so doesn't need much inference.

DD (who never read harry potter at 5 but could have, certainly read many similarly difficult books and newspapers and similar) knew all about the news and many historical events, certainly 9/11 and holocaust, and discusses lots of current news events. By year 1 DD's school often discusses such things or topical in their assemblies too (YR don't normall attend assemblies)

If it helps sink the remaining crew of the good ship Disbelief, I was what you would probably call a prodigy reader. I read cue cards and short books from two/three and I distinctly remember having to swap the books out in the supermarket (age 3) as I'd read them in the queue. My mum used to take me to the library after that for two cards with of books a week - it was awesome. 😁 My reading age at five was around 9, at six was 13+.

My first memories of primary school reception were of my teacher being angry that I said I could read Famous Five and Secret Seven and when I told her what each book she gave me was about, after a short time in class reading it. She accused me of lying, then of having read the books before with my parents and remembering all the words and what they were about. I definitely understood what I read and could answer questions on content. I couldn't understand why she was so angry at me. By the time I was seven my teacher had given in on trying to do group reading as I just read further on while the rest of my friends took turns, and finished each book only to become disruptive. I spent two happy years from that point reading mostly natural world reference books and encyclopedias in the school library after that, before moving schools and learning to hide how good I was at reading in an attempt to be less bullied. I was a bit of a weird child. I was sheltered from much of the real world though, unrelated to the reading I think.

I'm not sure when I started skim reading (8-11 I think) but that's mostly how I read now. Books are whole other worlds to me and I hope that my kids will get to that stage at some point in their education and gain as much from stories as I have.

I really hope your wee one nurtures this love of reading as they grow older - it really is a blessing imo to have the ability to escape and immerse yourself into a story. ☺️

I'd recommend these over the next couple of years, at least these are the ones I recall enjoying most:

The Dark is Rising series, Susan Cooper
Alan Garner
Wrinkle in Time series
Dick King Smith for light reading
Anything and everything by Diana Wynne Jones
Little House on the Prairie etc
Narnia
The Hobbit
The Secret Garden
The Little Princess
Five Children and It
Noel Streatfield (I went a bit ballet mad at seven, lol)
Arthur Ransome

(And Dracula and Sherlock Holmes when they're older)

I'll post more if I think of any. x

Blimey, I think some of themes from book 4 onwards are quite scary and I'm a grown up. People die in unpleasant ways and are tortured.

I wouldn't be letting my 5 year old read them or watch the films!

My lg is a very similar age and certainly could read HP, we read a couple of pages of no 1. But she really doesnt want to move on from books with pictures, so we read chapter picture books or like faraway new versions.

Imo though, age is rather misleading as they are yr 1 so in reality, though they arent, they are expected to be like the 6.7yos in their class. So the actual Op Q is is 6.7yo too young for HP 6.
More interesting is the time it would have taken to get to this level/ability. I think the books would take me weeks to read.
I guess though in yr r and 1 there is less homework than other years.

I actually find roald dahl has quite a few things that are not suitable for my dc as she copies stuff. Can with 'Utterly me', coincidentally i was reading that to her yesterday and got quite PO with the reference about FC and skipped over it. Possibly not quickly enough.

I think the benefit of us having gone through lots of different authors/styles etc is better than just reading all of one series where the books are so long at this age anyway.

What do PO and FC stand for, naty1? I don't know the Clarice Bean books. Quite curious about them now.

Pissed off
Father Christmas
It sats something about questioning whether it was true.
Nearly 6 is too young for that conversation.

When my son was 5 I had to take the hunger games off him - he'd already read 2 chapters!! I had to literally hide it until I felt he was old enough to read it and I'm glad I did as when he came to it later he had a more in depth understanding than he could have managed at that age.

I was a very advanced reader as a child. I used to buy Cosmo with my pocket money - that was an eye opener :)

Just wanted to add Lucy Daniels to your list. Like your dd DS1 loved Harry Potter in reception/y1. Was delighted to discover Lucy Daniels afterwards as there are, I think, 21 books in the Lion on the Lake series. Yy to Roman Mysteries too

Dakiara ballet mad describes our house perfectly!! ballet shoes was a huge hit with older DC. And we’ve got most of what you’ve recommended - the pros of her being the 4th child. I’ll never need to buy her many new books.

Fresh i’ll have a look at Lucy Daniels, the name is definitely familiar, thank you!

Naty1 I didn’t know about the FC reference but DD is already a FC sceptic... she hasn’t mentioned it so it’s obviously not pushed her over the edge but I give her one more Christmas before she stops believing. Generally I think the Clarice Bean books are great! And Definitely Daisy. DD loves football so I think she’ll really enjoy that series.

And yes - she’s definitely more like a 6 year old. Even though she’s only 3, 5, and 6 months older than her reception friends you can tell she’s older, but when you see her with her class friends (the ones I see most are 9, 8, and 6 months older) you couldn’t tell she was the youngest at all. She’s just a little bit smaller but I think that’s genes, not age

sirfred and TheDish I totally agree - while DD clearly doesn’t follow all the complexities in the plot, I think the main plot and all the school/magic stuff, and the characters, are very accessible to a child of any age. Magic school is always going to be fun!

im so baffled - how did you get any of your kids to be such good readers by 5!! We read to my daughter daily but shes not a skilled reader as yet.

how did you get any of your kids to be such good readers by 5!!

For me it wasn’t a thing we set out to achieve. DD didn’t walk until she was over 2 but spoke early. She liked sitting with books mainly so I’m pretty sure it developed from there. Lots of “what does that say” etc.

Just to clarify she asked me what words said. I wasn’t hot housing her 😄

So a kid dying in book 3 is not an issue. Kissing in book 6 is...

how did you get any of your kids to be such good readers by 5!!

Talk, talk and more talk to build language skills. Reading to them every day, multiple times. Them observing other family members enjoying books. Flashcards, letter recognition games, programmes like "Alphablocks", iPad apps.

Of course, this is all if the child want to and enjoys these things. I don't think a child should ever be forced into flashcards etc unless they're keen and willing.

I was a very good reader at an early age and it had absolutely nothing to do with anything my parents did - because they did absolutely nothing!!!!! No one read with me at home EVER!!!!!

I on the other hand did everything I could with my DC and neither of them read particularly early. Neither of them even terribly like reading and they are nearly grown up now, which is a source of great disappointment to me, as I love it so much!

Flashcards, letter recognition games, programmes like "Alphablocks", iPad apps.

None of this, this is all about the technical skill of decoding, that's not what makes reading harry potter possible, although obviously it's required, along with the reading stamina to do it. What matters more is the vocabulary knowledge, inference etc. skills. So yes talk, talk, talk.

Well obviously, Sir Fred. I'm a Primary School teacher, I teach children to read.

They need to be able to both decode and infer.

So a kid dying in book 3 is not an issue. Kissing in book 6 is...

No (I don’t think anyone dies until book 4, but that’s aside from the point) - but Dumbledore’s death is more complicated to understand, the relationships develop more, and I just think generally all the ethics and motivations of the characters become grey. I just don’t think she’s ready for it.

how did you get any of your kids to be such good readers by 5!!

I do think DD was helped by having older siblings - so when she was 2 she was constantly being chatted to either by me or by a 9/10/15 year old. And we all read a lot so she sits down with us and reads on her own, because she likes to copy. I didn’t teach her to read before school at all - I read to her each day and she picked bits up on her own, and then I left school to do the actually teaching to decode etc. I think kids are ready for different things at different ages - I wouldn’t take any meaning from it. In three years she’ll no doubt be distinctly average and there will be a new crop of “exceptional” kids.

I'd be interested to know who dies in Book three.

Apart from some unnamed Muggles, a rabbit and some Flobberworms.

Doesn't Quirrell get killed in the first book and the possessed snakey thing in book two, which is killed in a very dramatic and scary fashion.

The more I think about it, the more I wouldn't let a 5 year old read the Harry Potter and I absolutely love the books and the films but I'd be worried about nightmares for a 5 year old.

If shes read the first 5 already then I don't see why youd be worried about the 6th one. Dumbledore and Sirus are already dead so the worst has happened already!

Dumbledore dies in the sixth one - it’s the death of Dumbledore I think could be most confusing/distressing which is why I’m not letting her go any further.

Quirrell is never a likeable character and his death isn’t really dwelled on from what I remember.

She’s happily ploughing through Ivy and Bean right now so I’m just going to let her get on with that.

Might not be 3 but I meant Cedric. The first child to die.
(I found 3 terrifying with dementors and I was way over 5 when I first read it. 😃)

I found 3 terrifying with dementors and I was way over 5 when I first read it.

DD was a dementor for world book day this year