To think Harry Potter is not suitable reading for under 10s?

[lljkk]

I often read on MN that some child (age 5, 6, 7 etc.) has read HP.
Grand they have the technical skill - but how many have the maturity to grasp complicated plot?
And most of all, maturity to handle scarey bits and evil characters, esp. in the later books?
I know JKR intended the books for children the same age as HP in each book -- so first book for age 10, 2nd book for age 11, etc.

Am I only one thinks it's an inappropriate series for almost all little kids to read?

Discuss...

Asterix books rock. I re-read them in french when I did GCSEs.

Are they very different? dh and I have reread them and enjoyed all the word play again as ds has got them out of the library (two at a time with other books only - just like when we were small ). ds likes the visual humour best, but has started to figure out the verbal stuff too, which has really helped him to get to grips with the concept of reading is fun.

Some of the stuff is a direct translation, some is a different joke because it is a play on words that doen't work in another language.

I had forgotten all about the Virgina Andrews books - god they were trash and I loved them! (read them all by 11)

also had read the Omen (now that gave me nightmares - far too realistic)

the thing about HP is that it is such make believe that kids can normally handle it
Generally they are so good at understanding the concept of pretend, that they don't find it as frightening. Especially in a book.

DS1 read them at 6 and has loved them but been completely unscathed by them (he is usually quite sensitive - but knows what is fiction and what is not)

DH is reading HP to our DTDs who are 4.9, they love it

MY DS was the same Primula and Purple duck. He started reading them when he was 9 but wouldn't read any other books (although he would listen to audio books)this nmay be because he is dyslexia. He will be 13 on saturday and over the summer holidays he has suddenly become a little bookworm and has not stopped reading.
I have notices all the books he has gone for are series, such as Cherub, Percy Jackson,Artemis Fowl etc. All books which build an alternative world that you can be drawn into, which is what JKR did so successfully with Harry Potter.

Good grief Mrs Schadenfreude, my parents had The Hand Reared Boy too! It must have been a saucy bestseller in the mid sixties onwards I guess. And yes, I also have Brian W Aldiss to thank for much of my early sex education.
We keep our rude books off the bookshelves just in case - ds has already expressed an interest in John Updike's Rabbit, Run

lemon, I think Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge did do a great job on the Asterix translations though!

My son was keen to watch the films aged 8. Because I thought they would terrify him, I said he had to read the books first. He devoured nos 1-3, struggled through no 4 and stopped dead at no 5. So he still hasn't seen Order of the Phoenix. Personally, I think nos 4 and up needed far more thorough editing than they obviously got and are virtually unreadable.

yabu

some kids are more robust than others

i took a couple of kids i was babysitting to see walle last saturday (they are 9 and 7 and there parents had brought us tickets to go)

the 7 year old thought it was fantastic and she likes watching batman and all sorts of scary things

the 9 year old freaked out completely at the loud noises and stuff so we ended up leaving early

it depends on the kid

Marina, I wonder if your aunt stocks the Hand Reared Boy in Treasure Trove?

oh kids younger than 20 can read them. It doesn't take matiruty, it takes a high tedium threshold to get past the overly-thick book 4 onwards.

harry potter is suitable for anyone with a good imagination IMHO.

I LOVE the books, and the films, and so do all my chidren.

having said that, some children are scared of the traditional fairy tales, so would figure that they would also be scared of harry potter.

takes all personalities to make up the world, and so it stands to reason that it take all personalities to make readers.

I personally don;t get the lord of the rings, but at no point would I say that they are unsuitable for people...they are just unsuited for me!

My DS1 read the first HP book when he was 7 - it had just come out if I remember correctly. He read it in one day. He started in the morning and read until about 3am. He woke me up to tell me he had finished it and how brilliant it was. It was a lovely moment - his eyes were shining.

I try and encourage all reading.

Can you please refrain from jumping on the furniture. You wouldn't do it at home, would you? No. Thank you.

DS1 read HP 1-4 when he was 7 and loved them. He definitely got the plot - he saw the films afterwards and anticipated the plot much better than me and obviously remembered a lot more of the detail much better than me. He is a bit of a wimp so if he can cope with them I don't think they can be classed as scary at all.

That said, I won't let him read nos. 5-7 yet because HP is so much older than he is (he is 8 now) and I don't think he will understand some of the nuances of the story, particularly the girlfriend/boyfriend stuff. I will leave it another year I think.

But certainly by 9 or 10 I was reading grown up books - nothing horribly difficult (including some Mills and Boon - only time I have read the stuff) so why shouldn't he read books aimed at children? If he really didn't understand he would be bored and not bother.

That's a lovely story about your DS1 Swedes, reading HP till 3am and waking you up to talk about it. I would treasure that.

I remember DS1's first intro to the Potter. R4 did a whole-day reading one Boxing Day. DS, then 4, spent the whole day standing transfixed in the dining room, staring at the carpet and listening to Stephen Fry. Then it was Potter mania for the next couple of years.

He used to be completely omnivorous, and I let him read every kind of trash as well as the good stuff.

Actually, not quite right: the potter maina didn't really start till he could read the books himself, which obv at 4 he didn't.

Stephen Fry is an absolute legend, his reading of the HP series is fantastic and just so enjoyable.

I am one of those sad bastards who is far too old for children's books (26) but still has HP as my favourites of all time, I have read them over and over and listen to Stephen Fry's audiobooks regularly. It took me three reads of the first major character getting killed off before I could read it without crying, and it took more than that for when Dumbledore was explaining to Harry about his mistakes afterwards. The fight with Voldemort where the wands create an echo still has me sniffing even now, as does parts of the last book where Lily and James are involved.

I don't think that little kids will be phased by any of this though, their grip of life and love and loss etc is not likely to be fully formed at that age, not to the extent of an adult in any case and as the books aren't actually written to delve deep into the feelings of any of the characters it means that the reader has to use their imagination/experiences to fill in the gaps, so you make it what you will, as it were. For this reason I think a lot of the meaning of the story could be lost to younger kids reading the later books.

Probbaly depend on the child. My 5 year old dd got scared watching Elmo in grouchland so HP isn't going to be read for a while yet here!

God, I read 'flowers in the attic' aged 9, and it's stayed with me since.

I also read Stephen King which i'd buy in local charity shops, but hid them from my mum.

Oooh Flowers in the Attic!! I remember it so vividly and I must have been 9 / 10 when I read it - will look out for it in Oxfam bookshop!

I read loads of unsuitable horror and mucky stuff as a child and was never censored - I really don't think it's done me any harm and surely being frightened by a book is not a bad thing?

The only book my mum ever took off me was The Exorcist - she actually threw it out as she said it was the only book she had ever read that she felt had an "evil energy" (!?)

Ability to understand complex plots varies enormously from child to child. When dd was 6 she was making very insightful comments on the plot structure of the Lord of the Rings (made me read the whole 3 volumes aloud ); her cousin at the same age is only just moving from picture books (for listening, that is).

When dd was in Year 6 (so some of them only 10) they were reading Macbeth in class- that is a lot harder and a lot scarier than Harry Potter.

I read the Odyssey at a very young age, also dark and scary (particularly at the end), but the sort of thing that was considered good and improving reading. And admittedly no more dark and scary than the Brothers Grimm.

I'm in the YABU camp.

Kids should be able to read whatever they want, except porn.

I read Mario Puzo and that dreadful Rich Man, Poor Man when I was about 11. Sheer rubbish, but didn't do me any harm.