Power as central theme, HP for children?

[pigwidgeon37 at yahoo.it]

No: HPFGUIDX 22362

Miss Malfoy wrote:
< think Voldemort will be defeated. I mean, come on, good vs. evil is 
<a cntral theme in the book. The bad guy will more than likely be 
<killed intheend.

Sorry to disagree, but the central theme of the books is POWER and 
how to deal with it. If anyone took it upon hm/herself to count the 
adjectives and the frequency of their use, I think what would clearly 
result as the most frequent would be "powerful". It's all about how 
power is used by different prsons in different ways (and that's what 
I like about the books). Being good or evil mostly depends on how you 
use the amount of power you've got: For hurting and humiliating 
others or to help them.



I feel a bit out of discussion as I personally don't have children, 
but any way, here's my thoughts about it:
Having grown up in  Central europe, I was fed Grimm's, Hauff's, 
Bechsteins's, Andersen's etc. fairy tales and I loved them. I was 
never scared, not even by the bad queen hanving to dance in red-hot 
shoes until she dies or by any other scene of "horror", because I 
didn't have any picture to associate them with. The children of 
parents of my generation (I'm 37) are provided with plenty of 
possibilities of association, which requires a lot of preparation by 
their parents, e.g. for the scene where Peter begs for his life or 
for the trials Harrry sees in the pensieve. Furthermore, I parted 
from the (maybe wrong) apriori that what makes me shake would truly 
shock a child.
For me, PS adn Cos have always been books you might read to or make 
read your children without any problem, PoA and (even more) Gof for 
me are clearly bookslabelled "over 15".

Susanna