Harry Potter

[koby58]

How old was your child when they first read/you first read to them the Harry Potter series?

DD2 is the only one who has read all of it (or in the case of her dad's house, any of it) and her 7.5 year old sister wants to read them. Because DD2 is the only one who has read them, she is getting to decide how old her sister must be to read them. She wanted me to ask what your thoughts were.

DD2 was about seven/eight, but the books came out as she grew up. Her issue lies with basically anything past book three. Whereas she was 14/15 when the final book came out, if her sister reads them quickly she might only be eight by the time she gets to book seven. (I don't really remember the books, but this is what she told me.)

Her sister is a decent reader, above average.

[Daffodil]

I started reading the series to DD when she was almost 6, and we had finished the last book before she was 6 1/2. They were fine for her at that age - she loved them.

[zinemama]

I don't understand why you are allowing one of your children to decide how old the other must be to read a book. Shouldn't that depend on the child in question's ability and interest? This seems like an unhealthy dynamic to set up.

My son picked them up at 8 on his own. He was interested in them earlier (he'd heard other kids talking) but he wasn't able to read at 7. (And since I am no fan of HP, I wasn't going to read them to him, but told him to knock himself out when he was able to read them himself).

I strongly feel that you should trust and allow your younger daughter to make her own decisions about what she reads. She is her own person, not her older sister. If she doesn't like them, she'll stop reading.

[koby58]

I don't understand why you are allowing one of your children to decide how old the other must be to read a book. Shouldn't that depend on the child in question's ability and interest? This seems like an unhealthy dynamic to set up.

Sorry if that was unclear. DD2's little sister is her half sister - my ex's daughter. DD2 told dad and wife that she didn't want to pick when her sister - let's call her R - read HP. Dad told her that she had to pick or R would not read the books at all. I never censored either of my DD's reading. Still don't. DD2 doesn't want to slight her sister out of reading the books, but also would have to deal with the repercussions of if R had issues with the books.

Basically it's a horrible situation and DD2 is just trying to come up with a solution that will make everyone else happy.

[One_Girl]

I gave in and let my dd read the first book on cd because she has been asking for a year and has shown that she understands the difference between imaginary and real for the last year. She read the book on cd eight times in two months so I let her watch the movie. I am not comfortable with her hearing some of the more mature content so was going to make her wait until next year to listen the book two and the next for book three until she is able to read them on her own (which could be next year if she keeps progressing at the rate she is now). I have decided that we will get book two and I will read it to her one chapter a night until we are through the series or she can start reading it on her own. With the length of the first four books I believe she will be ready to read the books and ready for the adolescent content before we get past book four.

In your situation I think you should encourage your dd to say that her sister shouldn't read the books until she can read them to herself. It is listed at a fifth grade reading level so that answer may help unless she is significantly above grade level in reading. Even if she is at that level her desire to read such a long book may not be there, my dd is above level but doesn't have the patience to stick with long chapter books on her own.

[phathui5]

My oldest ds read the first five books when he was seven and the next two as they came out (by the time he was 8 1/2).

[gaudynight]

I read the first few chapters of Philosopher's Stone to DD1 just after she turned 8 but she wasn't interested enough to go on. We'll try again with DD2 when she's about 7, I think, and see if DD1's interested then. If not, oh well.

I really do think it depends on the child. DD1 understands the difference between real and imaginary but there's stuff in the later books that would give her nightmares so I would have held off on those anyway. And she won't be seeing the movies for a few years.

[Ellie'sMom]

I haven't read any of the replies, but my dd started the series at 6 and made it through the 3rd book. At the end of the 3rd, she really got scared, so we made her take a break for awhile.

I should add that she is a very sensitive kid.

She restarted them recently (she is 8) and just finished number 5 and is lobbying hard for number 6. I have only read through number 4 myself. At this point I am going to let her continue. I think she is good at self-regulating when something is too intense.

Anyway, I really think this depends on the kid. I say let her start them and see how she does.

I'll withhold comment on your ex's handling of this except to say

[leighi123]

Ds was 2.5, I've only read him the first book and I did censor a few parts of it a bit.

He wants me to read him the second one, but I want to wait a bit (he will be 3 on tuesday), so for now I've convinced him to stick with 'the mouse and the motercycle' series (we've read 2 of them so far)

[A&A]

Dd started reading it to herself at 5. You didn't have an option that young, so I had to pick "other."

[meemee]

dd's dad read the first one to her when she was 5. by 6 she had read both the HP series as well as LOTR series too. she also started watching the movies at 5 without being scared.

a lot depends on the personality of the child. my question to you is what happens if step sister is too scared?

a better book to begin to see if she is ready is to start with Tolkein's the Hobbit and then move on to HP.

dd's dad first broke her with the hobbit at 5 and then started HP.

[KaylaBeanie]

I voted for myself. The first book came out when I was 8, but I didn't start reading them until I was 10, when there was all the fuss about the movie coming out. After that, I read them as they came out. I've always been an advanced reader, so I could have easily read the first few much earlier. My parents never censored books, their philosophy is that if a book interested us, we could read it.

[sunnygir1]

Originally Posted by Daffodil

I started reading the series to DD when she was almost 6, and we had finished the last book before she was 6 1/2. They were fine for her at that age - she loved them.

Wow, that surprises me. Did you censor as you read at all? I have read some of them aloud to my nephew and niece. Both their mother and I did some "editing" as we read because they get scarier and darker as they go on. For example, when Voldemort forces Wormtail to cut off his hand, we didn't think that was the kind of thing we should read to a 6yo, especially at bedtime.

I would say the earlier books are definitely fine for 7-9yo. The later books might be a bit scary.

[eepster]

I happen to be reading the series myself and just got to book 7 (I'm on around the 5th chapter.) The first three books are pretty much fine for all but the most sensitive of children. I do tell 4 yo DS that they are too scary when he asked about reading them, but this is the kid who finds Dora the Explorer too scary.

After the 4th book things start getting much more complex. They start having dating issues and characters start being killed and maimed.

I would not trust reading level to determined appropriateness. Though the books get longer as they get darker, they are still a quick read.

Obviously a number of factors need to be taken into consideration. How well the child handles scary and emotionally intense content; if the child will voluntarily pause between books as they become more mature; etc.

[Daffodil]

Originally Posted by sunnygir1

Wow, that surprises me. Did you censor as you read at all?

No, but I did warn DD ahead of time about a few bad things that were going to happen (though I didn't know about all of them, since I was reading the books for the first time myself.) And at the end of the last book, when it began to look like things might not turn out as well as we'd expected, she agreed she'd like me to read ahead and let her know if Harry was going to die or not, so I did. The first book was actually the scariest for her. She found the end of the second a little scary, and then she was pretty much fine with everything after that. I think it was partly that she got used to a certain level of scariness and partly that the bad stuff in the later books tends to be more abstract, not so much of the suspenseful "what might suddenly surprise the kids as they creep around in the dark?" kind of thing.

[bobandjess99]

Uh.....my dd is 5 and my ds is 2 and they have seen all the movies that are currently out. We are looking forward to going to the theaters together as a family to see the last book, which is 2 films, and the kids will be 6 and 3 when they premiere. We love Harry Potter. Dd can't read at that level yet, so she hasn't read them, so I am the only one who has read them, but I hope she chooses to once she can read them, and I will let her read them as quickly as she chooses.

[MJB]

My 7.5 yr. old listened to the whole series on audiobooks when he was in kindergarten (so somewhere between 5.5 and 6.5). Both my sons have seen all the movies that are out and my 4.5 yr. old has read some of the first book.

[hergrace]

My almost 7 year old is half-way through the 6th book now and I expect he will rush into the 7th when he finishes this one. The first three books he mostly read to himself and the darker later ones, he mostly has me read to him, but we are definitely working through the series together. If he weren't already reading at this level, I wouldn't have read them to him.

[Needle in the Hay]

I read the first three books to my son when he was 7. He then lost interest and it was about a year later when he asked me to read book 4.

After that he wanted to hear the rest of the books, though we read other books in between. We finished book 7 in May (he'll be 9 next month).

I do think it depends on the child though. My son was sad when characters died, but not upset. He felt really bad for the Weasleys and there were parts he thought were a bit frightening, but he wasn't unduly bothered or scared by anything.

[Evan&Anna's_Mom]

The first HP book is the "read aloud for rest time" book for the K class at my children's school, so they both had the book read to them at about age 6. DD wasn't all that interested in it and didn't continue with the series. DS, on the other hand, became a total HP fan and we read all of them aloud as they came out, so he would have been about 9 when the last one was released. Now (nearly 11) he has gone back and read the first 4 or so on his own, and will probably re-read book 7 before the movie is released this fall.

The tone definitely shifts "older" and more serious as the series goes along. One thing that struck me was that the worry was about books 4+. Just because she starts the series now does not mean she will be 1. interested enough to continue or 2. reading continously until they are all read. I would suggest one book at a time with lots of opportunity for questions. Also, remember that children bring their own levels of understanding to things. I know that DS, DD and I all have different impressions/ understandings of certain scenes in the books, based on our own experiences.