Harry Potter

[chhotii]

Mom gave Sophia the first 2 Harry Potter books a couple of weeks ago. Sophia took right to them. She loves them utterly. Everything is Hogwarts this and Muggles that these days. So, of course, she immediately started begging me to get her the rest of the series.

I've never read the Harry Potter books. I figured I'd get to it when Sophia started reading them. (Now I'm trying to catch up, as I don't spend as much time reading as Sophia does.) So I don't know what the rest of the series is like, except that the later books are supposed to be for bigger kids, although I have heard of 6 year olds reading the entire series. I spoke to some other parents, asking "I know these ramp up a lot in maturity-- should I hold off on giving them to Sophia?" I was told, oh yeah, the books start getting seriously scary from book 4 onwards; besides, in later books it's more work to keep track of the plot arc well enough to make sense of it.

On a day off, Mom called with "helpful" suggestions for how we could spend our time, and said "how about if you go to the bookstore and buy the rest of the Harry Potter books?"-- I had to explain no, they really get scary, we are going to put that off, and Sophia will understand because she doesn't like to get too scared-- but Sophia was not deterred and was bouncing up and down at this idea. "Bookstore! Bookstore!" So we went to Barnes and Noble and I bought JUST BOOK THREE DAMNIT, and spent entirely too much money on other silly stuff.

I think Sophia is done with a first reading of book 3, and she is lobbying to get book 4 now of course. She's re-reading the books she has, which I think is good. I've only finished book 1 so far, it didn't help that we misplaced it for a while.

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

well, you know your kid best, of course. that said, i was raised an uncontrolled reader, and i think that was good for me. if a book was too scary, i got scared, i guess.

[ceo]

They do get a lot scarier; book 4 is where kids start getting killed. It's one reason we haven't introduced Benjamin to them, as he's historically been rather sensitive to that sort of thing.

Our experience

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

We have been letting Liam free read but I do read EVERYTHING that I think might be challenging for him emotionally. Liam read all of HP by the end of first grade. He had some issues about some of the scary but we worked through it. It all depends upon how she deals. Mostly Liam absorbed what he could and skimmed over the rest. He has reread much of it and we had interesting conversations as we have been watching the movies and I see what he has assimilated and what he hasn't.

[candle-light.livejournal.com]

Blah, first attempt at a response just got eaten. Anyways, a couple of years ago Hannah was reading HP and we asked her to stop after the 3rd book, since things get very dark after that (kids & adults getting killed, torture, etc...). I am now reading the entire series out loud to her at bedtime, which is what I did with Isaac when he was about 8 or 9 (and took about a year of bedtime reading to get through).

If you find you need to buy the rest of the series I've often seen used copies at the Used Book Superstore in Burlington. Or you could borrow them from the library...

[tb]

I have the whole series (for complicated sentimental reasons) and would be happy to loan the rest of them to you if you want. In fact, I was just thinking of saving shelf space by storing or selling them, since I'm unlikely to ever re-read them.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to trade for them. Any chance I can pick them up tonight?

[tb]

Sure, I expect to be home. Let me know what time-ish; texting is fine.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

It turns out that I will be getting a ride back with Rich after some meeting in Somerville. We might even have dinner in Somerville. So it will probably be late. Are you a night owl, or should I try for some other day?