I saw this article in the sidebar news ticker this morning about whether young children should see the Goblet of Fire, and it reminded me of e-mails from folks asking if I think young children should read Harry Potter. This is a sensitive area because I think reasonable parents know what's best for their own children.
Author J.K. Rowling said:
I didn't write with a target audience in mind. What excited me was how much I would enjoy writing about Harry. I never thought about writing for children– children's books chose me. I think if it is a good book anyone will read it. (Source)
I'm not a parent, so I can only tell you what I think I'd do if I were parent. My opinion on this issue presupposes that the children in question are growing up in a Christian home and are part of a Christian community with regular church attendance and Bible study. My under-12 child would not read the Harry Potter books. Children can sometimes confuse fantasy and reality, and I'd want them to understand the difference before I'd let them read fantasy literature like Harry Potter, which does contain supernatural and often "scary" graphic depictions. At age 12 they may be far beyond such confusion, but I'd use that age as a cut-off point. It really depends on your child and how you're teaching him.
I'd allow my 13-14 year-old kids to read the books with my guidance. Age fifteen until I'm no longer legally responsible for them? I'd still want to discuss the books as they read them, but I wouldn't push the issue. Hopefully at that age their Christian upbringing, lessons taught, and discipline instilled would be ingrained, and they could be trusted to understand the books from a Christian perspective and recognize the important take-away message.
For parents who allow kids age 10 and younger to read the books, I'd be wary of Books 3-6. Although Books 1 and 2 contain some "scary" imagery for younger kids, I think most can handle it. In the later, darker books, J.K. Rowling's characters begin to wrestle with some major issues, such as sexual awakening, a growing sense of foreboding, danger, and seemingly unstoppable evil. There are many themes to discuss and opportunities to teach them discernment in all six books, but I doubt I'd allow my 12-and-under kids to read any of the Harry Potter books.
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December 8th, 2005 at 11:25 pm
I was really saddened to see quite a few young children at the Goblet of Fire movie. I am not talking pre-teens here but children that couldn't be more than 4 or 5 years old. One family with two children under 5 sat next to my husband and I. Those poor kids were so scared. I could hear them complaining to their father how scared they were and they would close their eyes and climb up on their daddy's lap. But their father did not take them out of the theatre. He should have.
I missed quite a bit of the dialogue in the cemetary scene because I was so distracted by the plight of the children next to me and the tears in my eyes for them.
While I absolutely LOVE the books and the movies, I agree with you that they are definitely not for such young children. You can bet that as a parent I will be doing my homework before allowing my child to see a movie or read a book (i.e. view it myself and/or read reviews on it). This movie had a PG-13 rating for a reason.
December 9th, 2005 at 9:25 am
You know I grew up with fantasy and reality and well knew the differnce. My parents made sure I did. I love HP and have kids that aread it. Not a problem in my book, no pun intended.
December 9th, 2005 at 10:55 am
I saw an interview with JK Rowling where she said she had not let her daughter (age 8-10, IIRC) read past the frist book. She thought it was too intense.
December 10th, 2005 at 12:32 am
My older brother read Lord of the Rings in fourth grade; I read it in second grade; my little brother read it in kindergarten. (Yes, we were all two grades apart.)
I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian after I read the Hobbit (in kindergarten), but before I read Lord of the Rings. I didn't manage to get hold of the other five books in the series until I changed schools and libraries, so that was in third grade.
Look, if a book is 'too old' for a young child, that child is not going to continue reading it. (Teenagers are a different story.) It's a lot harder to turn off a movie than it is to put down a book. Distinguishing reality from fantasy is not normally a problem for any child who knows how to read.
So I really don't see this. Trudging across Mordor was a lot more intense than anything in Harry Potter will ever be, and it didn't do me any harm or cause me any nightmares.* The Bible has tons more murder, rape, and warfare than anything else I read as a kid, except maybe Larousse's World Mythology. Waiting for the schoolbus, now, that's horror. Yet somehow, my parents never let me off that.
(*Octavia Butler's alien contact novels, however, did give me nightmares when I read them in college. They are the only books that have ever given me nightmares. Ewwwwwwwww.)
December 10th, 2005 at 10:37 am
In comment LaShawn's suppositions as to whether and at what age children should read Harry Potter, I am in total agreement. I am a Christian with two teenagers AND a public school elementary school teacher. I do not dictate what my students are allowed to choose from the school library, and when students choose Harry Potter books for their self selected reading, all I have done so far is to point out that it is a very long book and that they will have to really keep up with their 40 pages a day in order to finish it in a timely fashion. Since I am to conference with students on their self-selected reading books, I often have to discuss the books with them. I have no problem doing this. What I am noticing however, is that students are beginning to talk about doing spells, are writing stories which have them doing spells and in some cases, the students are questioning the reality of witchcraft and whether it's real or not. The reason I worry is that we have been working on realistic fiction and writing believable stories with themselves as the main characters. There seems to be a fuzzy line, at least in the minds of my inner city students, as to whether the art of witchcraft is reality or not. Also, some students, invariably have very stridently been saying "My mother doesn't let me read those books", in (somewhat annoyingly "holier than thou" voices). Though, I feel that children of age 9 should not be reading them, I am distressed at the vehemence with which they discuss the books and the debating it causes in my classroom. I would feel more comfortable if they were not a part of the library in elementary school.
My own teenagers were forbidden in junior high, but they read them anyway and I realized, as Ms. Barber said, that I had taught them values I wanted them to have and that it was useless to forbid them. I read one of the books, myself, while allowing them to read the latest in the series and was able to discuss it with them in a coherent way. There was more there than just the context that was distasteful to me. What I found was that Harry, as the main character does not really give kids much to aspire to using the values that I have taught my children. Though, perhaps, unrealistic, books of old always had the children coming out right in the end by eventually adhering to the ethics that were, perhaps, a source of conflict for them throughout the story, but Harry, though showing emotions, distress and the anger which real teenagers feel, does not give them a viable code of ethics to work things out by. Furthermore, this was the first book in which I actually disliked the main character, perhaps because I felt that he never really rose above his negative emotions.
December 10th, 2005 at 10:40 am
Just wanted to apologize for all the typos, as my screen format did not allow me to see all of what I was typing so that I could edit it.
December 10th, 2005 at 11:18 am
Thanks for commenting, Tonni. I corrected a few typos because…that's just how I am!
I'll be adding a spell-check feature soon.
I appreciate hearing from a teacher who has children. As I wrote in the post, whether kids should read some or any of the HP books is a sensitive subject for me. Unless I'm asked, I don't like giving people advice about their kids, especially since I don't have any.
December 12th, 2005 at 9:23 pm
Obviously it depends on the child.
The most frightening thing I ever read as a child was not fantasy, but a children's encyclopedia description of how the Mexican volcano Paracutin began when a farmer saw some goo bubbling up in his field. I had nightmares for years. The quite graphic descriptions of gore and death in some of the fairy tales I read bounced right off (and let's face it, most fairy tales are pretty grim, pun intended).
I actually find the first two books in the series too silly and trivial. I would rather have my 10-year-old son read the later books BECAUSE they are darker, and much more meaningful. The important thing is to discuss the book with your child, and how it reflects or conflicts with your own beliefs. One thing I do like about all the Harry Potter books is that the main character has to rely on adult help, unlike many modern books in which the teenager is the smartest person in the room (just like I was when I was thirteen, uh-huh). I really believe that in order to have any understanding of this character you have to read all the books in the series, preferably in order. I hated the character when I read the first book, but after wading through the rest (because my son wanted to read them and I make a point of reading everything he does), I found that some of the things I thought were out of context. That's the author's fault, of course, but perhaps not such a serious one.
Movies are a different question. I don't think small children should see ANY movie in a theater. I never enjoyed it, as a child: sitting in the dark, with huge pictures beaming down and loud voices booming out at you, not being able to talk or go potty until the show is over. Anyway, when you rent a video you can vet as you go, and correct your mistakes in a hurry. When you've paid movie prices to sit in that theater, you feel honor-bound to sit in that theater.
Thank you for letting me express my unhumble opinion.
December 14th, 2005 at 2:04 pm
My problem with the books is more than just the fantasy/reality aspects that are difficult for children to separate. That's part of it, but the rest is this, the making of the occult, witches and the like into something desirable and likable. It's like writing a book about prostitution as if it's something cool and wonderful and passing it out to kids - only worse. As an adult I thoroughly enjoy fantasy books such as the books by Robert Jordan. However, I can't imagine having an interest in a book that makes the occult, witches, casting spells and so on in a desirable or even 'cute' way. I mean really, those with a true understanding of the occult, demons, Satan and God's view of them would never think it was cute or quaint to portray them as if they are no more than an average fantasy book.
December 14th, 2005 at 3:20 pm
I think it's a little over the top to call the Harry Potter books "occult". There's really nothing in them that portrays demons and Satan as attractive or "cute"; Rowling's use of the word "witch" is actually an error in terminology. I've seen the same charge levelled against the Narnia books. I also have seen children's books that do portray such things in a positive light. But you must read the book to know.
I also don't believe that children have any innate difficulty in separating fantasy from reality. The difficulties they may have are because we tell them certain things are real when they are not–Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, fairies, etc. etc. That's the fault of us parents, not writers.
Holly, I'm not sure what you mean by "an average fantasy book".
Could you elaborate, please?