Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Harry Potter--Doling out the books in the series

DD wanted to read the series when she was four but I didn't think she was ready.

She read Book One through Four at age five on her own, although there were a few chapters I insisted on reading together and a couple of chapters scared her enough that she asked me to sit right next to her. I am not comfortable with her reading Book Five and beyond until she is seven or older.

I've only shown her the first two movies and that was after she read the books over and over.

You're all raising good points about the movies. I told my son he wouldn't see the second movie until after he'd read the second book. I still regret showing him the movie first--I don't like that his visions of the characters and the settings had to have been shaped by the film--but I know I had good reasons for doing so.

To the larger point--I see how I should concentrate on the books and hold the line on the movies. One of my other challenges is my kid doesn't have much in the way of 'currency' that isn't edible, but Harry Potter readings have proven to be one of those rare things. (That and supervised Wikipedia searches.) We let him have two chapters at night IF he tells us three things he did while at school that neither I nor his father could know about. He's been really reluctant to tell us about his day, unless he can use talking to stall eating a meal he's not completely thrilled with. Anyway, my point--Yeah, definitely keep movie 3 and up off the menu for a while and only after he's read the book it's based on.

I do see that maybe we can move on to subsequent HP books, if we keep them in the context of bedtime, because a parent will be sitting right there with him. I am going to rotate in other books after book two, though, simply because we have The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland sitting by ready to go and we want to get to those. And I need to go take notes on that reading recs thread for his age group... useful, that.

This is roughly how it worked out for us-- but only because of DD's age being coincident with publication of books 5-7, that is, and her reading level syncing with the books at age 5.

She read books 1-5 pretty rapidly at ages 5-6. I made her buy books 4 and beyond for herself-- that slowed her down some because she had to save for them. She went through a period of not wanting to read them for a few months after her dad wisely (ahem) opted to let her watch HP2-- with the giant snake. Sigh.

Books 6 and 7 were published when she was those ages. That helped. I would not have wanted her to read book 7 in particular until she was that mature.

I have to add that knowing your own child is critical here-- I've never known another child that I'd have recommended anything beyond HP3 to at anything less than 6 or 7 years old. DD didn't have any trouble with that kind of heavy-weight content, and yes-- she understood it and processed it just fine. She talked to us a LOT about all of it. Our home was lot like an endless book club, basically.

My son is about the same age as Howlers. But DS17 wasn't reading long chapter fiction by himself at quite as young an age as her daughter. (He was an advanced reader, but wouldn't read long chapter books till a bit older.) I read most of the books to him around between 6-7 years old. I dragged the last few books out only reading HP6 to him a few months before the last book was due out. There was HP fever, everywhere including our house and it would have been very difficult to keep from him. But I wanted him to have read (or been read to) the books before seeing the movies. My husband was a HUGE fan before either me or the kids. The last book & 6th movie came out around a family trip to Europe when he was 7. We saw the 6th movie in London, went to Kings Cross station etc.. And I read DS the 7th book shortly after it was released. (I had to read the entire thing to myself first.)

And then when DS was 12. He spend a month long vacation, reading the entire series cover to cover and obsessing about the books in a way he didn't when he was 6. I ended up buying used paperback versions of the books for that trip.

If HP fever hadn't been such a big think at the time my son was 6 & 7 I probably would have put off reading the later books to him till he was a bit older. This is my child who still freaks out about Charlie & the Chocolate Factory and I have NO idea why HP was OK, watching ET was OK, and eventually the LOTR movies before he was 10. But still can't stand ANY version (book or movie) of Charlie & the Chocolate Factory.

When DD started asking questions about wars, terrorism, military, dictators, political assassinations, evil beings in general, I concluded that there wasn't much point in shielding her from these concepts since she already was exposed to them and she needed ways to make sense of her expanded understanding of the world. That's how HP came into her life.

Skepchick, as far as social currency for next school year goes, I'm not sure HP would help much. There are a couple of other children in DD's class who are HP fans but they did not exactly bond over HP. Being good at soccer and basketball really helps with recess time and block-building skills come in handy during indoor recess. There are a few boys in her class who gravitate towards playing with girls and those boys tend to be into pretend play and collaborative games. I realize I'm making sweeping generalizations but knowing how to engage other children in simple playground games probably would go a lot further and that is a skill that can improve with coaching and practice.

Oh, I should explain--the social currency was very specific to meeting this boy for the play date. The boy had seen that movie. DS had not so I chose to show it to him to give him one more thing he could talk about with that boy. It didn't come into play on the first meeting. It'll probably help later on, I think.

I don't expect it to help him bond with kids he knows at school right now. I mean, he's going into full K next year, and couldn't move up before due to rigid age cutoffs in our public school system. He got exposed to HP somewhere because when I revealed the name of the movie I was going to show him, he said, 'Oh! Harry Potter!' He could well have read the spines of the books on our shelves--that was his previous favorite party trick/stalling technique at dinner.

The 'currency' I speak of = things that motivate him to do things he doesn't want to do. AKA bribes.

Interesting that you chose to introduce her to HP as a way of helping your DD explore larger, tougher questions. That is a good point. Right now I find them useful for showing him that school isn't always 100 percent fun and sometimes, teachers behave badly toward their students.

DS8 read 1,2, and 3 as a young kindergartener (he may have started in preschool--I'm not sure anymore). I held off on books 4+ till 1st grade (despite many pleas), at which time I caved and he finished them all. I advise far more caution for the movies than the books, as others have said.

I doubt DS processed all the content. He did reread the earlier boks several times. I don't think he's reread 5-7.

One of my DSs read the whole series at age 8, the other at 9. Once they started, it was pretty much impossible to stop them, as they loved and devoured each book. They've seen only the first two movies, though. (They are nine).

My son was 6 when he read the first one-the rest of them came shortly after, and then we watched the movies. He's always been pretty good with processing mature concepts like those in HP and the movies never kept him up at night or anything. (He says the only thing that scares him is jump scares :P)

We are currently on our 3rd read-through of the series, and that's just the times I've read them to him--he's read them on his own at least 3 times. I just hope he likes The Wizarding World when we go in June!