My 6-year-old son is an avid reader and can read at a level much higher than his age implies. I am not worried so much about him comprehending the actual words in the book but rather the themes (he is a good reader but he’s still only 6!). I haven’t read any Harry Potter books so I don’t know what is actually in the books. Would the subject matter be totally inappropriate for a 6-year-old? I think he would like the basic idea (he is really into the Charlie Bone series). I have been told by a couple people that perhaps the first and second books would be OK but he should probably be older to read any further than that. Thoughts?
My son (6) just finished Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone - he loved it, especially the scary bits. We read it to him; he couldn’t have tackled that one on his own.
When my daughter (now 9, about 5 at the time) first encountered Harry Potter, we were worried about the scary bits. She made a whole game out of transforming into one of the frightening creatures - not traumatized at all…
Yeah, nothing really inappropriate but he’ll miss a lot. I know an alarming number of adults who wouldn’t catch most of what Rowling has woven into the books. That said, they make really good stories if that’s all you want.
GO for it. Any child who loves to read, and shows interest in reading advanced material should be encouraged at every step. If he gets scared or doesn’t understand a character’s motivations, he has you to help him out.
OK, I’ll dissent. I have an 8yo who loves to read, and I haven’t let her read HP yet. There are a zillion great books out there for her to read, and I’m not in a hurry for her to read that particular one.
The problem with giving the HP books to a kid under 10 is not the first couple of books. It’s the later ones. The series grows up with Harry, and gets progressively darker. I wouldn’t mind my kid reading the first books, but obviously she would want to go ahead and read the rest of them, and I don’t feel she’s ready for them yet. By the end, Harry is a (legitimately) angry teenager who is put through some very dark stuff, and I think she’ll understand it better if she’s older when she reads it. This is something that really annoys me about the HP series; it was great for the kids who grew up with Harry, but now you have thousands of 7yos wanting to read a series where the second half is not for young kids.
There are so many wonderful books in the world for an enthusiastic 6yo to read. Save HP for a few years and find some of the other good stuff.
I mostly agree with dangermom, but not in the final answer: yes, the later books are too much for a precocious 6 year old. But I think the answer isn’t to prevent him reading the first one now, but to prevent him reading the later ones now.
One Harry Potter book a year at Christmastime would be a wonderful tradition, and put him at just the right age for each one sequentially.
I think it’s a bit much for a 6 year old to try to read on his own. My oldest daughter has been a ferociously precocious reader from a very early age, but Potter was a bit much for her at 6. Not so much for vocabulary or anything – she was able to read it just fine – but it was still a bit complex and dense for her without a lot of explanation.
I don’t think it’s necessary to actively prevent him from trying, but I predict he won’t get very far if he does try.
And I don’t agree with that idea (with all niceness possible)–my kid knows the whole series of HP exists and I think would be unhappier having to stop halfway through and wait. I was never one to sit and wait around if I knew a sequel was somewhere in the world that I wasn’t reading. I guess I think that if it was me, I’d rather be able to read them all at once than have to stop and wait for my mom to decide I could read the rest of them.
And I guess I just don’t get the importance of reading HP specifically; there’s so much other good stuff out there, why worry about rushing into that particular series? Read Mr. Popper’s Penguins and The Great Brain and My Father’s Dragon and Time Cat. Enjoy the huge piles of age-appropriate literature that are on the library shelves, and get to HP in your own good time.
I have a girl in my class who, at 7, is whipping through the books; in about a month, she’s made it through the first four. It may be too much for a six-year-old, but it may not.
My objection would be that I just don’t think they’re all that awesome.
The girl I was a nanny for was reading at 4 and a half, and at a pretty high reading level by age six as well. She was reading Harry Potter by about age 7. She could read faster than me by age 8. And had pretty much all of the HP books memorized by age 9. You know your kids best. Read the books first, if you haven’t already, and then you will know if he can handle them or not.
My son just turned 5 and is also reading. But he is reading level one books right now. And while I don’t think he will be reading HP books on his own for a couple of years yet, we have been discussing reading him the first book during his nighttime reading session. He is running around here turning himself invisible, and doing all sorts of weird stuff on his own, so I think he is ready for book one.
I just got done reading them and the themes get darker as the series progresses. Also, as the book progresses, the kids operate under an anything-goes mentality. If you want to teach your kids to sneak around behind your back then HP is the primer for it. There is certainly room for discussions about real-life situations where adults should be brought into the picture instead of trying to work in secrecy. I would recommend that parents read the books first.
THe last couple of books are not childrens books. Actually none from the 4th onwards. The first should be ok and perhaps the second.
The last books have wonton torture, murder, implied sex etc.
Oh, I love Edward Eager. My daughter did get those at about 6 and has read them a jillion times by now. Although the other day I discovered that she thought thyme was pronounced thigh-em, so now she ‘gets’ The Time Garden a lot more. Heh.
I wonder if the rush to HP is partly because people don’t always know about all the other wonderful fantasy out there–much of which Rowling used as inspiration. There’s tons, and a lot of older good fantasy was brought back into print during the HP boom, so there’s plenty out there.
Has your son expressed any interest in Harry Potter? If he has I’d say go ahead. I’m not familiar with the Charlie Bone books, but based on the School Library Journal reviews then I don’t think the content or reading level would be very different from the first Harry Potter book. I’m generally in favor of letting kids read what they like. If it’s too hard or too scary for them, they’ll stop.
That would be my only concern, that if HP is too hard it will be a frustrating experience for your son and he’ll be disappointed. As others have said, the HP books get longer and more difficult beginning with the third book (of seven). The 4th book is over 700 pages long, and the 5th approaches 900 pages. If your son wants to read the books I wouldn’t try to dampen his enthusiasm, but if he has NOT specifically mentioned Harry Potter then it’s not the first series I’d recommend for a boy that age to read on his own.
