I've mentioned this before but there is no way my DD would read a book that she doesn't fully comprehend. She'd squirm and stop reading after a few pages. But I can imagine that there are compliant little girls out there who would sit through a book that is too difficult out of their willingness to please their parents and teachers.
I just don't know if I buy this. Like I said, sure, kids will carry the book around and say they've read it. Perhaps the author was taken in by such children. But actually sit and read it when they can't follow it? At age 7? It's an unusual young child who is so focused on pleasing that he or she will take the hours it takes to read HP book 7 when it doesn't make sense to him/her, for the sake of approval.
Again, I don't think my children are at all unusual in that when they start a book that is too hard for them, they let it drop pretty fast. They do sometimes read books that are pushing their abilities, and I know they miss things. When the book is a classic, this sometimes makes me squirm a little, but I'm not going to forbid. If I control, it's simply to try to strew the appropriate book in their paths at the appropriate time--but there are shelves of books in the house and no one has put them under lock and key. They also have the run of the library at school, and it's a good one.
