quote: That said, I think starting HP at around 8 is fine, especially if you read a book a year and grow with the character.
Except that that was only feasible when the books were coming out one per year. Now, my eight-year-old would tear through them all in about two weeks. And I think it would be cruel to give him the first three and make him wait until he was twelve to read the rest. So I'll be giving him the entire series then. Or maybe a year later. The problem is that he has a sister eighteen months younger than he is, so they tend to read everything simultaneously. So I might make him wait until she's old enough. Hmm...food for thought.
This is why I plan to give these to my kids to read when they are in middle school. Of course, the oldest is 3.5 so that's a long way from now, but I just think that these books are older than 8 or even 10. Maybe when they're 11 and 13 I can re-read them with my kids and enjoy them as if they're new again.
Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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If I have kids I don't think I would even suggest reading Harry Potter. As soon as they ask to borrow my copy, that's when I'll know they are ready to read it. In fact I'm not all together concerned that they're reading Harry Potter now that i think about it. As long as they are reading and they are enjoying it, that would probably be good enough for me. If asked a recommendation surely HP would come up eventually, but it isn't one of my parenting milestones I wish upon my kids.
Harry Potter has meant something to me, something that can never be reproduced for my kids because I was right in this time when it was happening. I was growing up with it in my life. There was more to HP than the books or the movies, it was the culture, the times. And while I feel bad that others won't experience that in the future, I've no doubt that some craze will strike upon their generation that hopefully will have an equal impact.
Posts: 247 | Registered: Jun 2008
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PSI and Christine-- do you always decide when to "give books" to your kids? What if they don't want to read what you want to "give them"? Posts: 930 | Registered: Dec 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Tara: PSI and Christine-- do you always decide when to "give books" to your kids? What if they don't want to read what you want to "give them"?
They can read what they want. My biggest hope for them is that they enjoy reading something. Perhaps I should say I will not allow them to read these books until they are in middle school. As a parent, I am allowed to determine what is age appropriate reading material.
But in point of fact, with reading and many other things, I do think about when I will start introducing those things to my child. It is a natural part of parenting that we think fondly on things we enjoy and think of ways to share those things with our children. The good parent understands that their child will not always enjoy or even accept these things and allows their child to be who they are anyway. It doesn't mean we don't dream. Posts: 2392 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
Tara: I home school my children, so the answer, largely, is yes. I give them books to read, for school, or approve the ones they choose for themselves at the library. When I say I will "give" them HP I suppose what I mean to say is I will allow them to read it. I doubt I'll ever assign HP as school reading; it'll be up to them if they're interested enough to want to give it a go.
Posts: 6367 | Registered: Aug 2003
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Psi Teleport, I would not want to read all seven HP books straight through, myself. I would prefer to read just one, then go read something entirely different, and then come back to the next book in the series.
It is a matter of literary surfeit. Feeling overfed or something--like living exclusively on potato chips for a week. Once during Christmas break when I was attending college I decided to remain on campus rather than go home, and I read Tolkien's entire Lord of the Rings trilogy. I came away from the experience not thinking very well of the trilogy. I thought for years it was tedious and boring. It was not until years later when I tried reading it again, at a more leisurely pace, that I realized I actually did like it a lot. Somehow just getting it all at once was what had made it turn into something tiresome and unenjoyable to me.
I am careful about that now. I have recently been reading David Weber's Honor Harrington series of novels, and also Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series of novels. I intersperse them, and sometimes read something entirely different (like the latest L.E. Modesitt Jr. novel), and that keeps everything fresh for me.
Well, I am now getting a little bored with Jordan--in the later novels he seems to be just padding out the books, which just go on and on before he does anything to advance the plot.
But I still love all the Honor Harrington novels. I'm currently reading The Shadow of Saganami, having already read the whole main series up to the latest. It is still fully enjoyable (although I wish there were more Treecats in Saganami).
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Soooo many posts!
Just saw it, I liked it, wished they had the battle though, they're outa be a trope for this: "You've Been Shired" or something, first the LoTR losing a important section, now Harry Potter, any other examples?
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How important really was it? Snape and his Death Eater companions fought their way out of Hogwarts (in the novel), instead of just sneaking out. That's not so big a deal. They still got out of Hogwarts, and Harry still confronted Snape and Snape did not kill Harry when he could have. The big battle scene will come in the final, eighth movie. The Seige of Hogwarts had better not be left out!
Posts: 3742 | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
I'm sure they're plenty other examples of important (or at least fan-favorite) scenes being excised in book-to-movie adaptations, but I can't think of any off the top of my head (the only other thing I can think of is actually also from LOTR: the scene where Frodo draws on the power of the ring and tells Gollum that if he ever touches him again he'll be cast into flame). I gotta second "You've Been Shired" for a new pop-culture trope, though. It amuses me.
Posts: 132 | Registered: Feb 2009
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quote: That said, I think starting HP at around 8 is fine, especially if you read a book a year and grow with the character.
Except that that was only feasible when the books were coming out one per year. Now, my eight-year-old would tear through them all in about two weeks. And I think it would be cruel to give him the first three and make him wait until he was twelve to read the rest. So I'll be giving him the entire series then. Or maybe a year later....
This is why I plan to give these to my kids to read when they are in middle school. Of course, the oldest is 3.5 so that's a long way from now, but I just think that these books are older than 8 or even 10. Maybe when they're 11 and 13 I can re-read them with my kids and enjoy them as if they're new again.
I did it ... my oldest reads way beyond his years and was really ready for HP when he was eight, and I loved it so much I was looking forward to sharing it with him. So I let him read book 1 when he was 8 and made him wait a year for each subsequent book, so he would grow up with Harry, and so he would understand better what was going on (because I do agree, the later books are not 8-year-old books). Now it's a tradition in our family. Second child just turned 10 yesterday and was so excited to get to read Prisoner of Azkaban, she's already halfway through. Third child is seven and can't wait until he's eight and can begin the series.
Keeping spoilers is sometimes hard, though.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Wow, JennaDean, more power to you! I think it is fantastic that you are doing it this way. Whenever parents asked me what age I thought their kids should read it, I always said that matching the age of Harry was a good start, just a year or two younger would probably be okay. Whether they took my recommendations or not, I don't know, but seeing someone actually able to put such a philosophy into place with their own children is great!
Posts: 315 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
I liked the movie, mostly because of how they handled Ginny. She is a great character.
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I've finally given up and started reading the books. I'm half-way through the third, and I'm pleasantly surprised with how much I like Hermione. She comes off so shrill in the movies, whereas in the books, she seems sweet, wise, and principled. I pretty much hated the Hermione of the movies and like the Hermione of the books just fine.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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quote:Originally posted by Irami Osei-Frimpong: I liked the movie, mostly because of how they handled Ginny. She is a great character.
Well, I would have preferred that they had actually dated at some point... but a long series of awkward, sexual-tension-filled moments works too, I guess.
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posted
I'm making my way through the books, and they are fine, not outstanding but good. Harry is a bit boring. He can be replaced by any of the other male protagonists of any major fantasy series, and probably not as morally interesting as Jon Snow from the Song of Fire and Ice or Garion from all of those David Eddings' books. If anything he is more passive or self-involved than those heroes are. But I feel like he doesn't have to be that interesting because Hermione is awesome. She is the reason I'm going to finish the series. She isn't perfect, but she is a fascinating, engaged, decisive, and moral. More than any of the other characters, she takes being a good wizard and a good person seriously and is willing to work for it. Man, did the movies blow her character. Rowling is setting Ginny up well, too.
Now, I'm in the middle of the fourth book, and I hope the three Quidditch ladies get some great non-Quidditch moment before the series expires. Angelina, Katie, and Alicia put it on the line, season after season, and if I were king of the world. the last book would have Angelina Johnson grabbing a dropped horcrux, running out of the room, jumping out of a window or off the nearest rooftop while someone flings her a broom in mid-air, then racing off through a gauntlet of Dark Wizards, trying to destroy her. They deserve it.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
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I'm curious why you think so. What about her depiction in the films suggests that she isn't earnest, fascinating, engaged, decisive, or moral -- or takes being good very seriously?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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True, Hermione has been given several of Ron's lines in the movies. Chamber of Secrets was the most prominent I think. It was Ron who explained what a "Mudblood" was in the books, Hermione was not entirely sure what it meant. Ron also took a much bigger part in explaining why it was not good that Harry was a Parselmouth. In the movie Hermione got pretty much all the dialog.
Ron's been pretty much relegated to a side-kick character in the movies. He comes off as that to an extent in the books as well, but not to the extent that he is in the movies.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I have yet to see the sixth one, but people's comments about Ron's "funniness" "coming back" and so forth lead me to think that this problem is not fixed in the sixth movie.
Of course, it's not really that it needs to be fixed. It is what it is. The movies and the books are on different tracks, and by and large, I've been okay with the differences. I love Snape in both the books and the movies, but I don't find Snape remotely funny in the books. And he's delightful on screen. I would never call him delightful in the books.
posted
Part of that, is that Alan Rickman has known for a long time exactly which side Snape is really loyal to. Rowling swore him to secrecy but gave him the information since it was necessary to a good performance. As a result, he has been able to inject some humor into an otherwise completely odious character.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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In can understand how that would affect his performance but it seems like the screenplay writers haven't been playing up his dark side in awhile, particularly this most recent film. In the movies it seems pretty obvious that Snape is the side of good. There's not going to be any surprise. His final moments aren't going to be all that moving. In the books he's just so nasty and vindictive that it makes his good choices all that more monumental.
Posts: 1733 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
Although I think they should have kept in a lot more of Harry's concern regarding Snape, a lot of that simply has to do with the film length. They simply can't show every class the kids take and have the other stuff. Snape was mean outside of class and detention but that's where all of Harry's primary interactions with him were. It makes it difficult.
Posts: 1214 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I find the Hermione of the movies screechy and obnoxious. I find the Hermione of the books daring and darling, even her misguided in her attempts to organize the house-elves in the fourth book, her willingness to brew up the Polyjuice potion in the Chamber of Secrets, her shrinking her teeth, and her thoughtful considering of Snape. She is interesting. Throughout the books, I think the boys would do better to listen to Hermione, and that they don't is a matter of their poor judgment. In the movies, Hermione is more childish in her rule following, and Ron's and Harry's exasperation with her seems founded. That's my read of the situation. I would have liked to see less Tri-wizard tournament and Yule Ball in the Goblet of Fire movie and more scenes dealing with what to do about the house elves. I think the latter has a more provocative message.
quote:I find the Hermione of the movies screechy and obnoxious.
Wow. I find Ron screechy and obnoxious, but I think Watson's Granger is dead-on.
I agree with Tom these days more often than is normal. I really like the movie version of Hermione, I'm very frustrated with how cruelly the movies deal with Ron, especially this last one. By the time the Deathly Hallows comes out,
*massive spoilers* Ron abandoning Harry and Hermione just won't have an emotional impact for me, as he doesn't really bring much to the table anyway.
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