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.

When I was in first and second grade, I'd go to the adult section of the library to get books on astronomy. When I was in third grade, I checked out a book on mental illness from the adult section. I didn't like that book so much - turned out I was more interested in the cases/anecdotes, NSM in the theory (which most of the book was devoted to).

I had a fascination with mental illness at an early age... sometimes I wonder what that means....

Dumbledore says that

the only known surviving Gryffindor artifact is completely safe. Would that be the sword? Of course, it's the only KNOWN artifact. V could have found another.

IIRC, the sword was referred to by Dumbledore when he pointed at it while talking about the "last remaining artifact of Godric Gryffindor's." But, we also learned back in the Sorting Hat song of, I think, Book 1 that the Hat was also Gryffindor's. I like the idea that the unknown Horcrux is something of Ravenclaw's, just because we don't know too much about that House. Maybe Luna is a direct descendent?

I'm rereading HBP now, and I got a plot bunny for fanfic last night. At Slughorn's Christmas party, Luna goes on one of her usual tangents about how the Aurors are trying to overthrow the Ministry by using a combination of the Dark Arts and gum decay which she calls the Rotfang Conspiracy. "The Dentists Granger and the Rotfang Conspiracy" sounds like a fun fic, doesn't it?

In the before time, in teh long long ago, someone mentioned that Bujold had a new book coming out in her fantasy series. So, naturally, I ordered myself Curse of Chalion only realizing when I read the dedication (what a weird thing to stick in my memory) that I had read it before. I even found my copy already on my shelf. However, I only remembered maybe half of the key plot points and not much detail at all, so happily enjoyed teh re-read. I've started Paladin of Souls, now. I love this world.

I loved Paladin of Souls. I'm trying to convince myself to wait for the PB on the third book, but it might just get me.