Hi a quick vignette on HP helping to produce the next generation of readers. Just met a seven year old who is three quarters of the way through The Half-Blood Prince.

Good Christ.

That is going to be one traumatized seven-year-old.

Actually so many books I read at that age had characters die - parents, dogs, etc.

Just got an email from my mom on HP6. She found it much less dark than HP5. Sad, but not as dark

and I loved books that could really make me cry as a kid. Now, they need to make me laugh too.

I was also thinking about the cave scene, with the "KILL ME" potion and the ZOMBIES OMG. And the lack of advanced thinking that would allow one to consider the possibility of Snape's being on the good side after seemingly acting so pointedly evil.

But hey. Start 'em out young, eh?

HP6 cave scene and kill me. Maybe they didn't seem that bad to me ( and possibly my mom) , because they are so much a part of the quest myth and fairy tales.

I must have read the real version of The Little Mermaid by age 7. I was crushed and exhilerated by the idea that she would go so far to attempt to see if the one that she loved, loved her. and then die. and no matter how many times I read it the ending never changed.

Just met a seven year old who is three quarters of the way through The Half-Blood Prince.

Hmm. And do they have much of a clue about what's going on?

t /cynical

Sorry, quite possibly unfair - I'd have been wolfing through the books when I was seven, I reckon, and I've taught two 7/8 year olds who were perfectly capable of reading JKR, understanding what was happening, recalling what had happened in previous books and being actively engaged with the texts. But I've also taught a lot of 7,8 and 9 year olds who say they love Harry Potter, and have ploughed through the books, but really haven't been able to understand what happened or to retain the information. They remember what happened in the movies, broadly, but the books? Not so much. Which I find - frustrating. Because you don't want to say "No, you can't take that book out of the library" to a kid who's gagging to take a book out of the library - but when you get him to read you some of the book and it is blatantly clear that he can have a stab at pronouncing the words but couldn't tell you what the whole sentence/paragraph/chapter actually meant...

Hmph. And there are so many many good books that they could be reading, that they could engage with, which would be building up their reading skills so that they could enjoy HP. But HP is a phenomenon like Pokemon & they want to be involved.

However, I hope that your 7 year old reader was one of the minority who really do get it. That's totally cool. Love wee kids wolfing through big books.

But I've also taught a lot of 7,8 and 9 year olds who say they love Harry Potter, and have ploughed through the books, but really haven't been able to understand what happened or to retain the information.

Same here, Fay. My little cousin was supposedly a big fan, but I asked her the most basic questions about the plot, and she couldn't answer them. I wasn't asking for a detailed essay or anything, COME ON! t /GOB

Well, as long as they enjoy what they get out of reading the books, who cares?

I'm not sure where I would have been at 7 - but by 9 I would have been there. My comprehension wasn't high- but my reading level was. It was almost better for me to read more complex books, so I had to pay attention. but if you ask my why I can't spell today, I am guseeing it was because I went from nonreading to reading almost instantly. I was a context reader - so I never realy pulled out individual words. I knew the meaning of a sentence, but an indiviual world ,NSM. Of course, I could just be missing the spelling gene.

I have always been a big rereader. I think lots of the books that I read and reread is because I read so well at an earlier age - but I was too young to catch the all the layers.

it is kind of interesting. I was helping someone find longer books for her daughter to read - 3rd or 4th grade but once again reading 3 or 4 grade levels above. Mom was thinking Mary higgins clark. Which I thought was too intense. I had suggested Agatha Christie, but it turns out the girl was a lot like me. when I was really young , I wanted things that were not very violent. and she Said no murders. so we trotted back to the children's room and found some of the Lawrence Yep SF mysteries.

anyway, I friend of mine was asking if he should read the HP books to his son.( age 7) I told him I thought the first two were right but the others needed to wait until he was a little older.

I am with Katie - as long as they are enjoying it, who cares. No one reads 600 - 700 pages to be cool. and if they miss thigns - they have that chance at learning th joys of rereading.

Well, as long as they enjoy what they get out of reading the books, who cares?

Well, from my point of view it's frustrating, but quite possibly I'm just being a bag. Anything that gets kids reading is good. But I'm invested in children reading books that they can understand, and building their reading skills. I get kids saying they read such-and-such a book for homework (not HP, just in general) and then when you ask them about it it becomes clear that they may have understood many of the individual words, but there was no real grasp of sentence cohesion. They didn't actually understand what happened in the story, or what was implied. And this is disheartening for me, because I really want them to be engaged and curious and reading something that's manageable, that's going to get them thinking and turning over the pages and wanting to talk about it. I guess that this Pokemon-level interest in HP isn't a bad thing, as such. I just find it depressing.

eta

Mind you, I'm being a total hypocrite, because really, I shouldn't have read The Lord of the Rings when I was 9. I was totally too young. But I understood it fairly well, even if not as well as I would have if I'd waited a few years. And I loved the story with a huge bibliophiliac sincerity. And, hey, it didn't kill me, and I still love the books, so - yeah. Whatever. Forget I said this.