Age suitability of canon

[aurigae_prime <ZaraLyon@aol.com>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, Melpomene wrote:
> 
> And that's funny because I remember one--Time Magazine upon release 
> of GoF where JKR herself was quoted as saying she would NOT ALLOW 
her 
> daughter to read the books at her (at the time) age.
> 
Yes, I remember seeing this as well.

> This is a real "bugaboo" of mine. What is the RUSH? These books are 
> going to be around for a very long time.? Wait until your children 
> can understand, appreciate and enjoy them! If you want to read them 
> yourself, go for it!
<snip>
> I never even THOUGHT of reading it to my daughter who 
> was(coincidentally) at the time, SEVEN.  My son will be 13 on the 
day 
> OoP is released, I believe he will be able to handle what JKR has 
> ready to throw at him. My 9 year old will not. Hell, *I* might not.
> 

If I recall correctly, there was a discussion (this summer, I think) 
about gifted children, in which many of the group discussed having 
been precocious and/or gifted children. Which may be why some of us 
feel that the canon is suitable for younger children. When I was 
seven, I was sneaking into my mother's room to read murder mysteries. 
I left her romance novels alone, because they didn't interest me, but 
those mystery novels sure did! 

My personal reading material as a child was overseen by my parents in 
what seemed (and seems) to me a haphazard way. For instance, from the 
time I was 6 I was reading Babysitters Club books. And I recall one 
incident in particular, that when I was 8 I received a boxed set with 
a book in it called Boy Crazy Stacy. Mom took that one away from me 
and kept it in her desk, and I left it alone. We moved when I was 9, 
and mom put that book in the box with my other books. So, when I 
unpacked my books, guess what the first thing I read was? And my 
thoughts were, "Why was this kept from me?" All it was, was that the 
girl had a very innocent little summer crush on a boy. But when my 
mother found me reading it, she made me throw it in the trash. I 
think it's the only time before or since that I've ever thrown away a 
book. A counter example here happened to be both my first encounter 
with slash and my first encounter with "published" fanfiction. The 
book was "Return to the Secret Garden," and it was essentially a 
fanfic for The Secret Garden that had gotten published. The three 
children were grown up, and instead of a love triangle focused on the 
girl, it focused on one of the boys. I think I was 14 when mom and I 
found that while shopping. I wanted it on sight, without even needing 
to skim the first chapter, and she bought it, but I'm sure she never 
dreamed what was in it! It's still a favourite of mine. Really, I 
think it's difficult to try and censor for a precocious child. If you 
want to try to do so, you really need to read the books before you 
give them to your child, no matter how terrible or innocuous they 
sound at first. And after all, every child, precocious or not, is 
different. For someone who liked murder mysteries, I scared myself 
when I read Dracula at age 10 (though I maintain to this day that it 
was the cover illustration that did it). But Harry Potter? If it had 
been out when I was 7, I have no doubt that all 4 books would have 
been bought for me, and that I would have read them all, and that I 
would have been just as horrified at GoF as I was when it first came 
out and I was a 17 year old. I guess what I'm trying to say with this 
long rant is that it all depends on the child.

With regard to fanfic... Well, I read fanfic (including a few NC-17 
stories) from about the age of 12, and slash from the age of 14 
(largely because my first fandoms did not really involve slashable 
characters). I don't think it's harmed me at all. I suppose some 
would argue that my parents could/should have supervised my internet 
time more, but... they worked 10-12 hours a day, most days. I wasn't 
doing drugs, I wasn't having sex, I wasn't even emulating the things 
I read about. I just read and enjoyed. It's also worth mentioning 
that, up until I was about 16, the smutty NC-17 stories were not 
something I read (though I'm told that if I were a boy, I'd have 
been reading them from age 10 onwards). Any NC-17 stories I read 
before that point might have had sex or violence, but it wasn't 
gratuitous, it was driving the plot. Do I think I'm a better person 
because of fanfic? Well... I think I'm  better person for 
participating in fandoms. Each fandom has taught me something 
different, and at this point, it seems that what I've learned from my 
previous fandoms has been leading up to making me a better part of 
this fandom. So, one of my New Year's resolutions is to participate 
more actively in the HP fandom, since I haven't really done anything 
since GoF was published.

Delurking for the New Year, and hopefully permanently,
Rhiannon