HELP! Any fellow parents out there....

[sandra87b]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "lavaluvn" <lavaluvn at y...> 
wrote:
> 
> HI everyone, I have a bit of a dilemma.  My six-year-old daughter 
> has gone and become a Harry Potter fanatic, which naturally thrilled 
> me at first.  I've really enjoyed reading the books out loud to 
> her.  My problem is that we've just reached the last part of GOF and 
> Cedric is going to die (tomorrow night, yikes!) and OOTP lurks in 
> the near future.  Has anyone else out there read Books 4 or 5 to 
> their young children?  I'm tempted to put off OOTP indefinitely, if 
> I can get away with it.  I've done a little judicious editing of 
> language now and then, but not cut much out, and now I don't know 
> what to do with the heavy stuff that's coming.
> 
> Anyone have any ideas, recommendations, anecdotes that might help...?
> 
> Thanks much!
> 
> Andromeda

Please don't read OoTP to such a young child. A friend of mine read OoTP to 
her 8yr old daughter when it was released, and didn't get beyond the first few 
chapters. My friend ended up telling her most of it in small bite-size pieces, 
not that she cared at all. It's miserable, very dull, not happy and doesn't 
improve at all. There's no warmth there, the innocence is completely gone, 
and Harry is an unlikeable hot head who got on my nerves. I didn't like it, my 
friend didn't, and her 8yr old is happy to stick to the merchandise! A book 
should take younger children to somewhere that's nice to be, somewhere that 
will play with their imagination - and the OoTP failed by a very long way. But 
that's just my opinion.

Sandra - an aunt and Godmother!