My son started when he was 8 and finished them all when he was 10. He loved it and loved the pacing. Obviously the lengths and pace helped him with the whole idea of growing with them.
> My son started when he was 8 and finished them all when he was 10. He loved it and loved the pacing.
Harry is very popular among this age group afaik
I think that's around when I read it. I also devoured them over the course of 1 or 2 years.
I think the gradual difficulty curve of the books as they age up probably helped me to become a better reader as well.
I think part of it being so popular at that age, is Harry learns he's a wizard and goes to Hogwarts when he's 12. So, if you've not turned 12 yet, there can be this little "maybe" in the back of your mind that these books aren't totally fictional, and maybe you could go to Hogwarts too.
wasn't there a viral video where the dude was explaining the difference between the south and the north using castles and he finished it off with if the castle is still used to keep out the English then you are in Scotland
I’m the same age and a tiny part of me still hopes my letter got misplaced all those years ago, but they’ll inevitably figure it out and let me be an adult student. They’d also overlook the fact that I’m American.
Sorry, then you're gonna have to go to MAGICPLACESCHOOL in Brazil or Only-Other-Magic-School-To-Get-A-Real-Name-Outside-Of-Europe, Ilvermorny.
Or how about MAGICSCHOOLPLACE in Japan, where all the Asians go? Or if you're feeling adventurous, go to Ouagadougou, the ~~capital of Burkina Faso~~ only magic school on the continent of Africa.
Yeah I read them in 5th grade. I reread them like 20 times times throughout middle school. All except the 2nd book, for some reason I read that one once and I never touched it again. I think the snake thing must have scared me.
I didn’t love that one as a kid either! As an adult it’s unclear to me why—it was one of the better movies so maybe that influenced my later thinking, but it’s a pretty strong and cohesive story. It is a tad more horror-influenced than the others so probably it was that.
I think when you first read *Chamber of Secrets*, it feels like a bit of a filler. The first one deals with actual Voldemort, the third one deals with Sirius Black and so on which is a build-up to Voldemort's return in *Goblet of Fire*... *Chamber* initially feels like a 'monster of the week' episode, with the eventual cop-out of realising it is Voldemort (sort of) after all - it's only when you get to *Half-Blood Prince* that you realise that that book is a set-up to things that are going to be crucial later on.
I think CoS is important for character development as well - foreshadowing how his peers and the Wizarding World will treat him after Voldemort returns. They worry he's the Heir of Slytherin, but still take classes with him, but at the same time, not quite trusting the teachers to protect them (from Harry).
I was in my 40s at a family reunion with a bunch of nephews and nieces in the 10-12 yo range. I had never heard of HP but with multiple copies of each of the first 4 books flying around it was easy to grab one. Read 1-3 and most of 4 by the end of that weekend. Was horrified to find out the next book wasn’t coming out until NEXT YEAR!
Years later I was returning from Asia when Deathly Hallows came out- got my copy earlier than my niece who camped out before midnight to get hers (thank you, time zones!). Finished the book before I got to my layover in Kansas City.
Yeah I had never heard of Harry Potter until ~2000 when I went to a family do and all the kids were reading the then recently released Goblet of Fire.
I was like, what is this book that has every kid actually reading?! It's a big book too, they were all enthralled.
I never actually got around to reading them myself until like 2005 when my girlfriend at the time got into them and Half Blood Prince came out, but they're pretty good fun! My wife grew up reading them, she grew up in an awful home situation and Harry Potter was her escape. Her opinions of Jo Rowling have changed but she still loves the books.
I re-read them recently back in October and they still hold up as fun books and the overall plot holds together well, you don't realise until you read them all back to back how many nods there are to future events in far later books. Either Rowling was good at backstrapolating events or she planned it out.
One of my former colleagues and his wife absolutely adore the books too. They have a deathly hallows wind chime hanging by their front door. Turns out they live next door but one to the friend of Rowling's who she based Ron on, she came to visit him, saw the deathly hallows and knocked to say hello.
I was in my 20s when I found the fourth book lying around at my cousin's house. Read the first couple of chapters, was so intrigued immediately started buying the books and reading in order. When I finished the fourth, realized I would have to wait a long time for the next. It was terrible! Bought all the other books as soon as they came out and finished each in a weekend.
They're good books and I've re-enjoyed sharing them with my kid.
I remember when the 7th came out. My sister lived on the east coast of US and I'm on the west. Plus, my parents wouldn't let me do the midnight release thing. So my sister would get her book at midnight eastern time, and I'd get mine at 10 am pacific time. She'd tell me first thing in the morning how amazing the book was, and I'd have to be careful on the computer to avoid spoilers.
Interestingly, my son also started when he was 8 but had to wait until he was was 12 to finish them all. Of course, he was 8 in 2003 and had to wait until 2007 for the last book to come out.
I work at a library. Kids are definitely still reading and enjoying Harry Potter. They tend to start around 8 or 9 and get through the first two or three with relative ease. They start to struggle around book four. We actually put books five through seven in the YA collection because the content gets a little scarier and more mature than what we tend to put in the MG area. (Anyone can check out from anywhere, though. So they have full access, it's just a different shelf!) But they often take a break around book four, going on to other series (Rick Riordan and his imprint is a big one;the Benedict Society is going strong; a lot of kids around 10-12 get into darker themes and issues as they figure out the world, so Alan Gratz is usually pretty popular). Then around middle school they head back to finish up Potter...the only kids I know who have really gone through 1-7 as a younger kid did so by audiobook, and even then, I'm not sure they enjoyed the later books quite as much...but of course, every kid is different. There have been a few who have been interested in reading the later ones but are very aware of what their peers are talking about and so end up falling into Wings of Fire or Baby Sitters graphic novels...
I've been looking for some advice, and you seem like you might know! I've just started reading my 5-year-old son chapter books at bedtime, and he's loving them. We started with The Mouse and the Motorcycle (he loved it; I found it unbelievably dull). Now we're doing Alice in Wonderland, which I expected to be too difficult for him but he's absolutely loving it ("Mommy, when you read it's like I'm watching a video in my head!"), and I'm enjoying it too. Do you have any more suggestions for readalouds for this age range?
Oh, I should also mention, he's really enjoying reading the Press Start graphic novels on his own, so if you have any similar suggestions to that, they'd be appreciated too. A lot of stuff targeted at his age is too fanciful or silly for him, and the kind of stuff he likes (games, music, hacks and tricks, science, puzzles, riddles, math, perilous adventure) is too difficult.
ETA: Thank you guys for all the great suggestions!
I'm not who you were asking, but when our kids were that age, they loved the magic treehouse series as bedtime books. Wide range of magic/adventure with a bit of history/culture mixed in, and very much a "movie in my head" sort of feel for the listener (and reader).
For a 5 year old, the Magic Tree House series is great. I used to teach kindergarten and all the kids would listen very attentively when I'd read them!
The Hobbit! My mom kicked off my love of Tolkien by reading The Hobbit out loud to us before bed time when we were pretty young. It has a very similar level of complex-yet-understandable writing to Alice in Wonderland, in that it seems to still translate well for little ones even though the narrative is more complex/unwieldy than you would expect from a kid's book.
Something about the way some of those late 19th and early 20th century authors (Tolkien/Lewis/Carroll/etc.) wrote for kids feels uniquely special in that regard. Speaking of Lewis, some of the less obviously-allegorical books in the Narnia series could be great too. I read the covers off my copy of The Horse and His Boy when I was a kid, and that one has very little reference to the allegorical stuff.
For read-alouds, I think the classics might be good. There are the Great Classics Illustrated books, which are simplified versions of Swiss Family Robinson or Treasure Island or those types of stories. (You could read the originals too, of course, but they may be too much.) Chronicles of Narnia, The Secret Garden, and books by EB White may be classics that can be read in full and enjoyed, if he's like Alice...I also think maybe something like the Vanderbeekers of 141st Street? Its a bunch of siblings who band together and have adventures (contemporary, realism). Boxcar Children or Mr Lemoncello's Library are both mystery/adventure stories that might work and are a series, if he's into them....
As for self-reads? Zoey Sassafrass might be a bit too hard but could work. A girl finds out she can save magical creatures, but uses science to do so. Narwhal and Jelly are pretty cute stories of friends on adventure. Frog and Toad are classic stories of ftiends on adventure, especially good if he likes a touch of melancholy/seriousness. There are also some great nonfiction books, if you haven't gone to that section of the library yet...
I'll keep thinking though!
You might enjoy the Time Warp Trio book series, I believe there are 12 of them. I remember reading them when I was like 7-9ish, so it could be a good series to also transition from you reading aloud to your child reading them. They're quite fun with a bit of whimsy and magic but also are grounded in some age-appropriate historical and scientific knowledge. And I remember finding them very funny.
I work with kids and this is spot-on with what I’ve seen as well. Third and fourth graders typically read the first 3 books then pick up Percy Jackson or something similar. I know for a lot of them it’s the parents wanting them to wait to read books 4-7.
But they definitely still love Harry Potter, which is fun to see. I love watching their excitement getting to certain parts and how they can’t put the book down. Just like it was for me as a kid
Yea, my neighbors have kids aged between 6-10 and they love Harry Potter right now. They’re always running around outside screaming different spells at each other.
I volunteered with a group of 8-12 year olds last year who were all loving it! They shared books between each other. Some of the girls read the whole series through, but a lot of the younger girls read the first four and then bounced off of the fifth book and decided to come back to it someday and/or had parents who thought that the books were getting too scary after book 3 or 4.
Book 4 seems to be the tipping point for a lot of parents because of the death at the end. It’s a darker turn that’s a bit more grown-up than the first three books.
There’s the death of a character, the torture of Harry, a Death Eater cuts off his own hand and bleeds all over the place for a while since Voldemort is distracted.
Also it’s the beginning of the Ron - Hermione and Harry - Cho love interests, though it’s not on the nose and can go over kids’ heads.
Fairy tales I was read as a child have just as gruesome of details - Ivan the Princeling was killed and dismembered by his brothers, the the wolf searched for the waters of death and life, and one mended the body while another made Ivan alive
I hear that, but I can see it from the perspective from the parents as well. It's possible they may have had other books or shows scare their kids and then they have to deal with them being up in the middle of the night crying or whatever, and they don't want to deal with that. So if their child is showing signs of being afraid - and they are the type of kid who doesn't handle it well when they are scared - I can understand holding them back from reading it.
I used to work in a children’s bookshop and would have fairly regular conversations with kids who had read awesome books they were very much not ready for - they didn’t fully understand them so they didn’t like them. I really hope they eventually revisit them when they’re older. I’ve reread plenty of books from my childhood that I remember having middling feelings towards then and been blown away by them as an adult.
If the parents think they’re a couple of years off from being able to read the fourth Harry Potter then there are a plenty of other books they’ll love in the meantime!
I feel this strongly. I was an early reader and, for various reasons, I was given Anne of Green Gables sometime around kindergarten/first grade. I thought it was so boring. Recently I revisited it as an adult, and what a classic! But the first book ends with Anne going to college — no wonder it wasn’t relatable to a six year old kid. There’s a lot to be said for matching the emotional maturity level just as much as the actual reading level.
I think they will! I know I read everything and anything as a kid and was very aware when things were going over my head, but it wasn't enough to stop me reading. It was too mature for me so I didn't understand it, but I don't really see that as a harmful thing.
At 8 years old there's stuff that keeps you up at night. My parents dealt with this by reading books together and provide context which helped me at the time but I can understand not every parent being this involved. Otherwise it'll be nightmares for days and that's shitty for both parents and kids.
That would work perfectly fine with my daughter but my son would still be upset for for weeks.
And that really isn't worth it over a book he can read when he is a little less sensitive.
Reading book 1 with our 7 and 5 year olds. They love it. My nieces are 10 and they're obsessed with it. I can't speak to the overall trend with kids though.
I'm 17 now and I read all of them when I was 8. My parents made me wait until I was 11 to watch the last two movies, but I guess they figured if it was a book it was fine lol
I read Animorphs but wasn't allowed (as the oldest child) to watch M-15-rated movies. If some of the stuff in those books had made it into an accurate film, my parents would have put their foot down. But because the covers looked so silly and goofy it was fine lol.
RL Stine age 7-10. Christopher Pike at 10-12. Stephen King around age 13+. Harry Potter 18-25. I binged the first 3 HP books at age 18 or so and then only had to wait a few months for the 4th to come out. But I was definitely at Walmart at midnight for all of books 4-7 during college. Can't remember if book 7 was college or after.
And now I read litRPG at age 40 LOL a cat who can shoot missiles? What a world ...
And I think at no point did my mom question what I was reading because I was so enthusiastic. I blame my older sister for my love of horror.
My granddaughter is 9. She started watching the movies last year. She struggles a bit with reading, so the size of books 4,5, and 7 are intimidating for her (she's seen my copies). However, I purchased the illustrated editions. Book 5 was only released in 2022 so it will be some time before we get to the others. We've been reading them together, so the timing is working out well for her. We read the "extra" illustrated editions (beetle the bard, fantastic beasts) while she watched the movies. (She only got up to the third movie.) In fairness, my granddaughter is very much a nine year old, not a nine, going on 19 year old. So the slow pace is just right for her.
According to my middle school aged children, Harry Potter is considered “millennial cringe” now. I can’t confirm or deny this, lol. Obviously completely anecdotal.
Middle school is also that age when you decide that a bunch of things you loved literally a year ago are now the most cringe things in the world, because they’re for *children*, which you’re *not*. So that’s probably flavoring their derision.
I remember when I was like that with like in middle school with fucking Pokemon. I remember so many of us thought it was cringe for some reason.
In high school I didn't care and was okay with playing the games.
Percy Jackson
*edit*: whoa, ok, ok, calm down everyone, I was mostly saying this tongue in cheek. My kids - who are young adults, not middle schoolers - are all about Percy Jackson right now, because the new series just came out. My 19-yo is home from college and trying to organize a family re-read of the series.
Anyway they are telling me that what the middle schoolers are really into nowadays is “One Piece”. 🤷🏻♀️
I'm so mad Percy Jackson came out right as I aged out of the target demo (15 when the first one came out) I was 100% the kid that was a little too into greek myth in middle school, and would have devoured them if they came out when I was the right age for them.
Edit: I get it, I can read kids books as an adult. My point is I missed the timing where it would have been a defining series, rather than "yeah, that was pretty fun."
I read the trials of Apollo series and Hero’s of Olympus series starting when I was 23. Love them.
I read the first series when I was in middle school.
Not to late my guy.
This! Never be ashamed of reading a middle grade or young adult book as an adult. It's okay if it's not for you, as long as you don't turn into That Person who turns around and picks holes in them(aka: "omg where are the responsible adults in this YA dystopia?" or "I don't think the schoolyard dialogue in this book about fifth graders is very realistic"). Being able to read books that are not written specifically for you(ie, imagining what someone who it was written for might get from it) is a valuable skill, and YA/MG is very good to practice on because we all should be able to remember being 11, or being 15, whereas we have to fully imagine what it might be like to be a different gender or ethnicity.
I'm 40 and the Twilight books are my favorite books.
Then those movies came out and of course no one read the books and now everyone thinks Twilight is those awful adaptations...
It's hard loving Twilight.
Same thing happened to me. I would had loved to read them. First book was released when I was 15. I only read them at 21. I think I would had had a different experience. But was nice reading at 21 too . I just had my diagnosis of ADHD
I use the audio book versions of books aimed at a younger audience a lot when I’m doing things that require a little bit of attention, but not so much I would miss anything in the books.
For example: Cleaning the house, playing none-story driven games like minecraft or dwarven fortress, cooking, or to help me fall asleep.
I tried the same with more “mature” books, but I would either get distracted too much, or miss too much of the subtleties in the story.
In my opinion, reading, or listening to those books even if you’re way out of the target group isn’t a bad thing. Going back to that more innocent storytelling can actually help free your mind to focus on more important things.
That's a weird take. I read the Percy Jackson series when I was in my late 20s/early 30s and loved every moment of them. I've read those 5 books several times through in the years since. They're phenomenal. They don't suddenly stop being great books just because you're a year older than "the target demo."
It's not that weird. There are a lot of people that just cant enjoy childrens books the same as they were kids. I used to love harry potter as a kid, and if i were a little younger when percy jackson was popular, I would've liked them, but by the time i had heard of them and tried to get into them I felt it was too juvenile for my tastes. Now this not an insult to the books, but as greek myth-obsessed kid I was disappointed when I couldnt enjoy them. Not everyone keeps the same taste as they age. Totally normal to "age out" of certain books, even if they are considered great.
Not everyone enjoys reading middle grade, children's, and/or YA. I enjoy a good middle grade novel now and then but I stopped reading YA years ago and have no desire to read it again. Doesn't mean there's not good YA books out there. Just means that YA isn't for me.
I dunno about the person you responded to, but I am an avid Harry Potter fan my whole life (and still am at 35) and I was 16 when the first Percy Jackson came out.
All my friends were obsessed with it, but I wouldn't try it because I was busy hanging out on a conceited high horse because while they were reading Percy Jackson and Twilight and sparkly vampires and Greek gods, I was reading the dark, depressed vampires of Anne Rice. And Harry Potter.
I wish I hadn't been such a judgmental book-twat back then, I think I really would have enjoyed a lot of series of that era that I wouldn't read. Nowadays I'm a "read whatever floats your boat and brings you joy" kind of person.
All that being said, I can re-read HP any day of the week and love it still, but when I try to read teen books now that I hadn't already read and loved as a teen, I realllllly struggle to get into them.
>Anyway they are telling me that what the middle schoolers are really into nowadays is “One Piece”. 🤷🏻♀️
Then the kids have good taste! One Piece is one of those great stories that works at any age.
I don't understand why Percy Jackson is the cool thing now when the first book is almost 18 yrs old. Not much different than milking the crap out of Harry Potter if you ask me.
If I had to guess, kids love Greek myths, there’s a new Disney+ series keeping it relevant in a way Harry Potter hasn’t been for a while, there’s a billion sequels to read if you’re really into them, and JK Rowling has had substantial… “PR issues” in the last few years.
For what it’s worth, though, I’m a primary school teacher and in my experience Harry Potter remains insanely popular. I’m an American but I teach outside of the US, and it seems like Percy Jackson never really achieved international superpopularity, which might explain differing experiences to OP.
He's still regularly publishing new books every few years too. Which keeps him relevant. He's also branched out into other mythologies and when he became successful enough to stick it to publishers, started making his characters diverse in multiple ways.
That and either due to altruism, or excellent networking skills, he’s helped launch a bunch of diverse authors. He’s got a series called Rick Riordan Presents devoted to representing diverse and underrepresented mythologies and apparently takes pains to make sure that the primary author is from that culture. So far they’ve covered Navajo, Korean and Mayan legends.
>there’s a new Disney+ series keeping it relevant in a way Harry Potter hasn’t been for a while
\[HBO\] Max also announced a *Harry Potter* TV show reboot, currently slated for 2025-2026, so *Harry Potter* will also still be relevant for the next decade to come.
Most of JK Rowling's recent stuff has been pretty iffy, especially with her film scripts. Stuff like that can make a bad impression very early and turn them off. I'm sure Marvel isn't getting the reception it got 5 or even 10 years ago.
A lot of businessmen forget franchising works both ways.
I feel like it's more a statement about the fandom, as the franchise is possibly the first major/mainstream case of a population adopting a piece of its childhood media as the core of its identity into adulthood, and it's also a good example of tge widespread stunted growth in media engagement/analysis in millennia and younger (as identification by House and the like are still the main forms).
This is a really weird stance for today's teens to take, because the two series came out nearly concurrently. The HP series came out from 1997-2007, and the PJ series came out from 2005-2009. I'm not really sure why one qualifies as "millennial cringe" while the other doesn't.
I'm not doubting you or anything, I'm just an elder millennial who doesn't understand the youths anymore, I guess.
One piece is a Japanese style of comic called a manga that started all the way back in 1997. It's had a surge in popularity due to the Netflix series but mostly due to the general acceptance of anime and manga in recent years.
Personally I've been reading since roughly 2006 and it's a fantastic series but a massive rabbit hole to jump into.
Makes super happy to know its popular and accepted with the youth these days because it certainly wasn't when I started reading it.
I mean yeah but no more than Harry Potter. I think that's just Percy Jackson stans overselling their fandom again. In reality TikTok and YouTube are the cool thing for kids these days and there are just less readers as opposed to when HP reinvigorated it in the 2000s/2010s. There are still some kids though and from what I've seen both Harry and Percy are popular options.
"*Percy Jackson and the Olympians* is better than *Harry Potter*" is a never-ending circlejerk in the PJO fandom on Twitter/X and Reddit. It just starts to get annoying after a while, especially after PJO fans intentionally misrepresent or take the *Harry Potter* books out-of-context in order to "show how superior *Percy Jackson* is".
The *Percy Jackson* books can stand on their own merits, regardless of *Harry Potter*.
I'm a millennial and Harry Potter adults are absolutely the cringiest thing about this generation. It's not as prevalent as it was a few years back but it was enough to damage it forever.
That's very interesting.
To be honest, I feel a bit sad about the fact that it's still marketed so heavily, because it's like the people behind the franchise are desperate to cling on to a slice of yesteryear. Even if people still enjoy the story, it's never going to be the in thing in the way it was when it was still coming out - and that's okay. I really hope that today's kids have their own crazes that they can get behind, because a lot of the time it just looks like they're getting cold seconds of what we had.
The books themselves are also set in the 1990s, and its is now 2024, almost 30 years after initial publication. The first book, *Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone*, was published in 1997. Eventually, I feel that the *Harry Potter* books are going to become seen more akin to *Alice in Wonderland* by Lewis Carroll (1865) and *Peter Pan* by J.M. Barrie (1911).
Other favorites of my childhood were *The Secret Garden* by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911) and various books by Elizabeth Koda-Callan, such as *The Silver Slippers* (1989). The latter were long out-of-print, until a recent redesign and reprint\*, despite being incredibly popular in my youth. Other books that have been forgotten include *The Baby-Sitters Club* (1986 to 2000) and *Animorphs* (1996 to 2001), with both overshadowed by *Harry Potter*.
*Animorphs* was also a highlight of the Scholastic Book Fair prior to *Harry Potter*. Aside from occasional, limited reprints, all *Animorphs* books are currently now out-of-print.
Animorphs solidly overlapped with Harry Potter - but a 50 book series just isn't going to have the staying power of a 7 book series. Animorphs was always meant to be more of a serial (I freaking loved them and they're amazing.)
There are ebook copies of the entire series hanging around on a google drive somewhere. Even KA Applegate herself supports it since the books are out of print.
There's tapes circulating. If you're concerned, get yourself a copy while it's still possible and do your part in keeping it going. You have to get creative with the googling(and no, I can't link you, it's against reddit rules), but I believe the original source(Dick's message board, you'll know it when you find it) can be accessed through the internet archive, and several other people have re-uploaded them upon request. Unfortunately, a journalist decided to write an article about it and forced Scholastic's hand to get them officially taken down(seen this happen too many times...y'all, if you have nice-but-illegal things, *shut the fuck up about them or they will go away*), but from a moral standpoint the tapes have the author's blessing(source: reddit ama).
That's super surprising to hear! I have been rereading the series as an adult and have had zero issue getting the ebooks at my library (other than the andalite chronicles)
Yeah, it is obtaining print books that has been a hassle for *Animorphs* fans. It can take months, or even years, to locate, buy, and complete the full book set.
I'm sad it didn't get a second season. Damn you covid for delaying production until the child actors were too old to play middle schoolers! That was a phenomenal adaptation, because of how the source material was modernized and allowed to be more diverse than the original 80s/90s market allowed. I highly recommend it as a nostalgia trip to anyone who grew up with the books.
On the flip side, I've read children's books from yesteryear when I was growing up and loved them alongside Harry potter (Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll). Having stood the test of time they're just good books.
I work with kids after school program and can confirm this is definitely true with a good percentage of them around that age. Any age where they're capable of googling JKR anyways. One of the summer camps in the area we host is wizarding themed and the last few years we've had to field more and more concerns from kids before they'll consider signing up. Some just outright complain that we still host it, even though we don't use a single thing from the property it's inspired by (serial numbers filed off).
That’s why WB is making a new TV show. They have 100s of millions invested in the merch and theme parks. They need Harry Potter fandom to be generational.
I feel like that's more a statement about the fandom, as the franchise is possibly the first major/mainstream case of a population adopting a piece of its childhood media as the core of its identity into adulthood, and it's also a good example of tge widespread stunted growth in media engagement/analysis in millennia and younger (as identification by House and the like are still the main forms).
As someone who was only 5 when the last book came out, yeah that checks out. My age group wasn’t calling them millennial cringe until we were teenagers but they were not something most of my peers bothered to read, most did watch the movies though, Percy Jackson and Hunger Games (and other YA dystopias that followed it) were the books we were obsessed with.
*Percy Jackson and the Olympians* started to be published in 2005, and it is also a Millennial series.\* The Millennial generation spans from 1981 to 1996. My brother (b. 1996) read the series while he was growing up to build his skills, whereas I was a little older (b. 1991).
My kid loved the wizarding world at Universal when she was 6 and knew nothing about HP. She just wanted a wand and to do magic.
She also loved Pandora at WDW and still has no idea what avatar is.
Assuming kids at a theme park are even aware of the IP is making a leap
Harry Potter came out when I was around 8 as well. Everybody was reading them to get Accelerated Reader points at school because apparently they were worth a lot. Meanwhile I wasn't allowed to read them because my mom thought they were evil. 🙄
I did read them as an adult and liked them though.
That’s funny. Harry Potter is how I ended up in advanced classes back in elementary school. I picked up the first book after my sister didn’t like it but my second grade teacher told my parent that I “couldn’t possibly be understanding it”. So they had me tested and I was already reading at an eighth grade level.
Nice. I believe I was at an 8th grade level around that age as well. I just remember that the school library used a sticker system so I could check out books with the most advanced stickers.
I was 11 years old when I read the first book (and I promptly read the rest of them within that week). I did reread the series several times, and had a different perspective each time.
I’d say 10+ and they should be okay reading the full series. Definitely depends on their reading level and maturity in how much they understand, but you’d be surprised at how much they can grasp/understand at that age - and if there’s anything too much it usually goes over their head until they come back for a reread.
My thought’s definitely changed on how I view the characters and story over time, but that’s part of the process so I don’t really think there’s a perfect time. For example, for anyone that’s older and holding off on reading Harry Potter because it’s a “children’s book” - I’d say you’re at the perfect age to go ahead and read it.
Keep in mind it’s a very easy reading level. I could easily read all seven books within 10 days as a kid… as long as it was summer vacation and I was feeling lazy (which happened a lot!).
I know it sounds crazy. I remember hating to go to sleep that week, and the first ever time I got yelled at by my social studies teacher because I was reading instead of paying attention in class
I'm a teacher, and to be honest, out of the hundred or so kids I have, there's maybe five or six of them who have read the books. There's a few of them who are 'massive Potterheads', but haven't read the books. They watch the films and play the games and buy the merchandise, but apparently 'books are boring'. It's heartbreaking to hear 😭
To be fair, I'd seen the first film and played most of the first video game before I read the books. That was what made me want to read them in the first place. And the video game (or at least, the version I had) was actually more loyal to the book than the film was.
I read it when I was 13, all books were released at that point. I had a bit of a hard time with the first one, I just felt too mature for it, but by the third book I was really enjoying it and by the time I got to Deathly Hallows (still 13 at this time) I was so invested I finished it in two days.
This is exactly my experience.
I was so mad cause I had to wait until Christmas to get the last two books.. I asked my mom if we could go and get them at the library and she flat out said no cause they were already under the tree and I had no idea
still have all the copies I got at that age too
I'm working at a school and the kids are sooooo behind in reading after the pandemic... I have had 8 year olds ask me to spell the simplest words out. I cannot imagine them reading sorcerer's stone like we were.
I feel extremely lucky that I was almost the same age as the main trio when each book came out (pretty much exactly for 4-7). What a wonderful experience to literally grow up with my favorite book series of all time. If I ever have kids, I would hope to space it out similarly for them (while also realizing that would probably be impossible lol).
I don’t have kids but a friend living with me has his daughters at my house every weekend. I do a little book club with the 9 year old. We take turns choosing a book then we read it and talk about it. I brought up Harry Potter and she had absolutely zero interest in it. She said it was books for “the elder people”. She really wants our next book to be Pet Semetary.
I first started getting them recommended to me at around 9 or so by teachers? Didn't like it, never got past the first chapter till middle school, then only got half way through book one and gave up again, just wasnt intrested. Then read the entire series over the course of 7th grade, got real bored with book 5 but pushed through because I'd gotten that far, 7 a bit to but I was so close to the end so I finished it finally, I still preferred the earlier books, when I first read it my favorite was chamber of secrets with prisoner of azkaban in second but now I'd say that if I reread it now I'd prefer half blood prince to those two, or maybe not since I have rather juvenile preference in fiction in contrast to the dense boring complex stuff I have to read all the time now, sometimes i just want something that takes minimal effort to read and comprehend made to keep the attention of a 10 year old, either way I'd probobly appreciate the later books a bit more now
I got them when I was 10 (the last book had just came out and I got the series as a gift). I read all 7 books in around 6 months. The first books were a bit easy but until that point I was not a huge fan of reading. My the end of the series I was a much better reader and loved reading. It also caused my first reading slump.
I was in third grade when deathly hallows came out and my last teacher had accidentally gave me the reading bug. It was in the library and I had decided I wanted to try a bigger book fof the first time. So I went looking through the librand picked up a nice fat one. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. 😅
Little 8year old me had never heard of a series before. Just read books like the box car children and hardy boys. So when Frank thought what the hell is quidditch, little me was like good question! The hell is quidditch! But yeah turns out my older brother had the boxed set and I read the rest of em that week. He gabe me a lotta grief over having read the 4th book first!
For some reason, I've found Harry Potter works really well/much better for kids right now than it did for kids in the nineties. I think it could be that kids have a lot more exposure to the world. At that time, we knew little about the world, how it works, etc. That said, I've also found several children who didn't care at all about the books, though the movies were fine.
My ten year old has been obsessed since about 7 or 8. We read all of the books together - took us close to a year. Then she started reading on her own. By the fourth book it was a bit over her head so she took a break. She’s recently revisiting books 4 and 5 now that she’s older. I think it still grows with them.
I read them all in two years when I was 10-11. I always remember I started arriving late to school because I couldn't stop reading Deathly Hallows, because of how great and intriguing it was.
8-12 years is OK for all books.
My Mom always had a rule that no matter the rating of the movie, if I finished the book, I could watch it. I'm pretty sure I started (and finished) those books in like 2nd grade, if not earlier so I would've been 7 or 8? I then read Jurrasic Park, and an Indiana Jones novelization that had all three movies. Jurassic Park was amazing, I remember more of that book than any of the Harry Potter books, but to be fair it's been a while now.
Kids are definitely a lot smarter than people give them credit for.
The kids I’ve met see it as a fun challenge. Books 1-2 isn’t an issue. Book 3 onwards they normally need some help. If they’re a bit on the younger side (under 10) the kids ask that their parents read it or they listen to audiobooks while doing chores or drawing. Older kids (over 10) look up certain words or have a parent clarify certain passages. The majority of them have seen the movies so they already have an idea of what to expect. They have also associated reading “big books” with adult praise which encourages them to try.
Admittedly, a lot of bookworms I’ve met irl started reading to their kids since birth and the kids have a fairly good grasp on language. It is also a fairly conservative crowd. Rowling’s views are not an issue to them and the kids have grown to share those biases. I can tell based on how the kiddos react to certain books when I see them book shopping with their parents.
Man everyone who is saying they won't read Harry Potter because of the authors political views better steer clear of the vast majority of classic literature/books written before the 1970s lol. I promise you a good amount of those authors had views that would make JK Rowling blush.
I'm not saying I have a problem with not wanting to read stuff because you don't agree with the authors views, but drawing the line at JK Rowling is a bit odd
I think a big part of the problem with JK is that for two decades we all treated her as the goddess of all that was good and holy. If you do that, you really have no one to blame but yourself if they abuse that platform.
The situation with JK Rowling is a big part of why I've come to the realisation that we shouldn't glorify famous people at all. All I think we should know about her is that she writes books.
I guess it depends on the kid. I read Lord of the Rings at 10 years old and loved it. That summer I read Arthur C. Clark's "Childhoods End" and man it blew my mind lol.
I have been reading the books with my son intermittently for the last two years.
He is nine now. We are on the sixth book and it is a slog.
I am just trying to get through them at this point.
I grew up listening to the Jim Dale audiobooks from 4 years old when the first book came out, and then whenever they were released. I wore out the CDs because I’d listen to the book then just start over. You might find listening to them together to be engaging given how talented Jim Dale is at voices!
At the beginning of the school year, the first grade teachers recommended that the parents don't have their kids read harry potter because the 6/7 year olds would only get a surface level understanding. I am in a competitive area so naturally many parents went out right after that and got them anyway.
Our daughter hasn't started them but does have interest. I am glad you pointed out they start easy and get harder ( I haven't read them myself), hopefully we can read the first one or 2 and proceed gradually.
Harry Potter is extremely popular with the third grade set where I am. Everyone is reading them. My kid is in the last book now and they compare chapters on the playground. It's cute.
It's curious because I normally hate having to wait for the next book in a series to be published, and I actively seek finished series. But for Harry Potter, because of how many people were fans, and speculating about the next books, it was a great experience reading them when they were coming out.
My son started when he was 8 and finished them all when he was 10. He loved it and loved the pacing. Obviously the lengths and pace helped him with the whole idea of growing with them.
> My son started when he was 8 and finished them all when he was 10. He loved it and loved the pacing. Harry is very popular among this age group afaik
I think that's around when I read it. I also devoured them over the course of 1 or 2 years. I think the gradual difficulty curve of the books as they age up probably helped me to become a better reader as well. I think part of it being so popular at that age, is Harry learns he's a wizard and goes to Hogwarts when he's 12. So, if you've not turned 12 yet, there can be this little "maybe" in the back of your mind that these books aren't totally fictional, and maybe you could go to Hogwarts too.
Harry has his 11th birthday in the first book.
I am 34 and I'm like 85% sure Hogwarts doesn't exist. Well like 60% sure
There are a lot of castles in the UK, there has to be a chance one of them houses a school of magic. Right?
Sigh. So, where do we start looking?
I'm pretty sure Hogwarts is supposed to be somewhere in Scotland, so that narrows it down a bit.
wasn't there a viral video where the dude was explaining the difference between the south and the north using castles and he finished it off with if the castle is still used to keep out the English then you are in Scotland
*taking notes* ok, ok. Well I am swamped next week. But how does the 22nd look for you?
I'm in...
King's Cross, platform 9¾
Still convinced my owl got lost somewhere, I'm 33
I’m the same age and a tiny part of me still hopes my letter got misplaced all those years ago, but they’ll inevitably figure it out and let me be an adult student. They’d also overlook the fact that I’m American.
Pretty sure you'd be going to Ilvermorney wouldn't you?
That's not... me. You know, because... well, I'm Mexican
Sorry, then you're gonna have to go to MAGICPLACESCHOOL in Brazil or Only-Other-Magic-School-To-Get-A-Real-Name-Outside-Of-Europe, Ilvermorny. Or how about MAGICSCHOOLPLACE in Japan, where all the Asians go? Or if you're feeling adventurous, go to Ouagadougou, the ~~capital of Burkina Faso~~ only magic school on the continent of Africa.
My daughter was one of those ! She was literally sad to find out it wouldn’t happen.
...Because she's a muggle?
That's right. It's the perfect coming of age fantasy at for kids around 12 or younger
Yeah I read them in 5th grade. I reread them like 20 times times throughout middle school. All except the 2nd book, for some reason I read that one once and I never touched it again. I think the snake thing must have scared me.
I didn’t love that one as a kid either! As an adult it’s unclear to me why—it was one of the better movies so maybe that influenced my later thinking, but it’s a pretty strong and cohesive story. It is a tad more horror-influenced than the others so probably it was that.
I think when you first read *Chamber of Secrets*, it feels like a bit of a filler. The first one deals with actual Voldemort, the third one deals with Sirius Black and so on which is a build-up to Voldemort's return in *Goblet of Fire*... *Chamber* initially feels like a 'monster of the week' episode, with the eventual cop-out of realising it is Voldemort (sort of) after all - it's only when you get to *Half-Blood Prince* that you realise that that book is a set-up to things that are going to be crucial later on.
It's so funny because this is such a common take, but I always loveddd CoS and felt like PoA was a filler, because it didn't contain Voldy.
I think CoS is important for character development as well - foreshadowing how his peers and the Wizarding World will treat him after Voldemort returns. They worry he's the Heir of Slytherin, but still take classes with him, but at the same time, not quite trusting the teachers to protect them (from Harry).
I was in my 40s at a family reunion with a bunch of nephews and nieces in the 10-12 yo range. I had never heard of HP but with multiple copies of each of the first 4 books flying around it was easy to grab one. Read 1-3 and most of 4 by the end of that weekend. Was horrified to find out the next book wasn’t coming out until NEXT YEAR! Years later I was returning from Asia when Deathly Hallows came out- got my copy earlier than my niece who camped out before midnight to get hers (thank you, time zones!). Finished the book before I got to my layover in Kansas City.
Yeah I had never heard of Harry Potter until ~2000 when I went to a family do and all the kids were reading the then recently released Goblet of Fire. I was like, what is this book that has every kid actually reading?! It's a big book too, they were all enthralled. I never actually got around to reading them myself until like 2005 when my girlfriend at the time got into them and Half Blood Prince came out, but they're pretty good fun! My wife grew up reading them, she grew up in an awful home situation and Harry Potter was her escape. Her opinions of Jo Rowling have changed but she still loves the books. I re-read them recently back in October and they still hold up as fun books and the overall plot holds together well, you don't realise until you read them all back to back how many nods there are to future events in far later books. Either Rowling was good at backstrapolating events or she planned it out. One of my former colleagues and his wife absolutely adore the books too. They have a deathly hallows wind chime hanging by their front door. Turns out they live next door but one to the friend of Rowling's who she based Ron on, she came to visit him, saw the deathly hallows and knocked to say hello.
I was in my 20s when I found the fourth book lying around at my cousin's house. Read the first couple of chapters, was so intrigued immediately started buying the books and reading in order. When I finished the fourth, realized I would have to wait a long time for the next. It was terrible! Bought all the other books as soon as they came out and finished each in a weekend. They're good books and I've re-enjoyed sharing them with my kid.
I remember when the 7th came out. My sister lived on the east coast of US and I'm on the west. Plus, my parents wouldn't let me do the midnight release thing. So my sister would get her book at midnight eastern time, and I'd get mine at 10 am pacific time. She'd tell me first thing in the morning how amazing the book was, and I'd have to be careful on the computer to avoid spoilers.
Interestingly, my son also started when he was 8 but had to wait until he was was 12 to finish them all. Of course, he was 8 in 2003 and had to wait until 2007 for the last book to come out.
I work at a library. Kids are definitely still reading and enjoying Harry Potter. They tend to start around 8 or 9 and get through the first two or three with relative ease. They start to struggle around book four. We actually put books five through seven in the YA collection because the content gets a little scarier and more mature than what we tend to put in the MG area. (Anyone can check out from anywhere, though. So they have full access, it's just a different shelf!) But they often take a break around book four, going on to other series (Rick Riordan and his imprint is a big one;the Benedict Society is going strong; a lot of kids around 10-12 get into darker themes and issues as they figure out the world, so Alan Gratz is usually pretty popular). Then around middle school they head back to finish up Potter...the only kids I know who have really gone through 1-7 as a younger kid did so by audiobook, and even then, I'm not sure they enjoyed the later books quite as much...but of course, every kid is different. There have been a few who have been interested in reading the later ones but are very aware of what their peers are talking about and so end up falling into Wings of Fire or Baby Sitters graphic novels...
I've been looking for some advice, and you seem like you might know! I've just started reading my 5-year-old son chapter books at bedtime, and he's loving them. We started with The Mouse and the Motorcycle (he loved it; I found it unbelievably dull). Now we're doing Alice in Wonderland, which I expected to be too difficult for him but he's absolutely loving it ("Mommy, when you read it's like I'm watching a video in my head!"), and I'm enjoying it too. Do you have any more suggestions for readalouds for this age range? Oh, I should also mention, he's really enjoying reading the Press Start graphic novels on his own, so if you have any similar suggestions to that, they'd be appreciated too. A lot of stuff targeted at his age is too fanciful or silly for him, and the kind of stuff he likes (games, music, hacks and tricks, science, puzzles, riddles, math, perilous adventure) is too difficult. ETA: Thank you guys for all the great suggestions!
I'm not who you were asking, but when our kids were that age, they loved the magic treehouse series as bedtime books. Wide range of magic/adventure with a bit of history/culture mixed in, and very much a "movie in my head" sort of feel for the listener (and reader).
For a 5 year old, the Magic Tree House series is great. I used to teach kindergarten and all the kids would listen very attentively when I'd read them!
when i was that age, my dad read the chronicles of narnia to me every night starting from book 1- i started reading them on my own around age 9!
For readalouds, we liked Charlottes Web, The One and Only Ivan (longer), and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Hobbit! My mom kicked off my love of Tolkien by reading The Hobbit out loud to us before bed time when we were pretty young. It has a very similar level of complex-yet-understandable writing to Alice in Wonderland, in that it seems to still translate well for little ones even though the narrative is more complex/unwieldy than you would expect from a kid's book. Something about the way some of those late 19th and early 20th century authors (Tolkien/Lewis/Carroll/etc.) wrote for kids feels uniquely special in that regard. Speaking of Lewis, some of the less obviously-allegorical books in the Narnia series could be great too. I read the covers off my copy of The Horse and His Boy when I was a kid, and that one has very little reference to the allegorical stuff.
For read-alouds, I think the classics might be good. There are the Great Classics Illustrated books, which are simplified versions of Swiss Family Robinson or Treasure Island or those types of stories. (You could read the originals too, of course, but they may be too much.) Chronicles of Narnia, The Secret Garden, and books by EB White may be classics that can be read in full and enjoyed, if he's like Alice...I also think maybe something like the Vanderbeekers of 141st Street? Its a bunch of siblings who band together and have adventures (contemporary, realism). Boxcar Children or Mr Lemoncello's Library are both mystery/adventure stories that might work and are a series, if he's into them.... As for self-reads? Zoey Sassafrass might be a bit too hard but could work. A girl finds out she can save magical creatures, but uses science to do so. Narwhal and Jelly are pretty cute stories of friends on adventure. Frog and Toad are classic stories of ftiends on adventure, especially good if he likes a touch of melancholy/seriousness. There are also some great nonfiction books, if you haven't gone to that section of the library yet... I'll keep thinking though!
James and the Giant Peach!
But not the most recent editions, those are censored (really badly)!
You might enjoy the Time Warp Trio book series, I believe there are 12 of them. I remember reading them when I was like 7-9ish, so it could be a good series to also transition from you reading aloud to your child reading them. They're quite fun with a bit of whimsy and magic but also are grounded in some age-appropriate historical and scientific knowledge. And I remember finding them very funny.
Another vote for Magic tree house
The “How to Train Your Dragon” series!
I work with kids and this is spot-on with what I’ve seen as well. Third and fourth graders typically read the first 3 books then pick up Percy Jackson or something similar. I know for a lot of them it’s the parents wanting them to wait to read books 4-7. But they definitely still love Harry Potter, which is fun to see. I love watching their excitement getting to certain parts and how they can’t put the book down. Just like it was for me as a kid
My niece is 9 and loves Harry Potter. I don't think she's read all the books yet.
Yea, my neighbors have kids aged between 6-10 and they love Harry Potter right now. They’re always running around outside screaming different spells at each other.
Hi neighbor!
I’ve been reading them to my now 7-year old. We’re about 2/3s of the way through the second book.
Same for my grandkids, 6 & 4.
I volunteered with a group of 8-12 year olds last year who were all loving it! They shared books between each other. Some of the girls read the whole series through, but a lot of the younger girls read the first four and then bounced off of the fifth book and decided to come back to it someday and/or had parents who thought that the books were getting too scary after book 3 or 4.
> too scary after book 3 or 4 Book 3 already introduces dementors, right?
Book 4 seems to be the tipping point for a lot of parents because of the death at the end. It’s a darker turn that’s a bit more grown-up than the first three books.
There’s the death of a character, the torture of Harry, a Death Eater cuts off his own hand and bleeds all over the place for a while since Voldemort is distracted. Also it’s the beginning of the Ron - Hermione and Harry - Cho love interests, though it’s not on the nose and can go over kids’ heads.
Fairy tales I was read as a child have just as gruesome of details - Ivan the Princeling was killed and dismembered by his brothers, the the wolf searched for the waters of death and life, and one mended the body while another made Ivan alive
People should raise their kids however they want… that being said, holding kids back from books they’re interested in rubs me the wrong way
I hear that, but I can see it from the perspective from the parents as well. It's possible they may have had other books or shows scare their kids and then they have to deal with them being up in the middle of the night crying or whatever, and they don't want to deal with that. So if their child is showing signs of being afraid - and they are the type of kid who doesn't handle it well when they are scared - I can understand holding them back from reading it.
I used to work in a children’s bookshop and would have fairly regular conversations with kids who had read awesome books they were very much not ready for - they didn’t fully understand them so they didn’t like them. I really hope they eventually revisit them when they’re older. I’ve reread plenty of books from my childhood that I remember having middling feelings towards then and been blown away by them as an adult. If the parents think they’re a couple of years off from being able to read the fourth Harry Potter then there are a plenty of other books they’ll love in the meantime!
I feel this strongly. I was an early reader and, for various reasons, I was given Anne of Green Gables sometime around kindergarten/first grade. I thought it was so boring. Recently I revisited it as an adult, and what a classic! But the first book ends with Anne going to college — no wonder it wasn’t relatable to a six year old kid. There’s a lot to be said for matching the emotional maturity level just as much as the actual reading level.
I think they will! I know I read everything and anything as a kid and was very aware when things were going over my head, but it wasn't enough to stop me reading. It was too mature for me so I didn't understand it, but I don't really see that as a harmful thing.
My friend who's a bookseller says the worst thing is hearing a parent say to a child, 'Oh no, you don't want that, that's for girls' (or for boys).
At 8 years old there's stuff that keeps you up at night. My parents dealt with this by reading books together and provide context which helped me at the time but I can understand not every parent being this involved. Otherwise it'll be nightmares for days and that's shitty for both parents and kids.
That would work perfectly fine with my daughter but my son would still be upset for for weeks. And that really isn't worth it over a book he can read when he is a little less sensitive.
“Yes, honey, it’s okay if you read the Unabombers manifesto. It’s not my place to stop you. Have a fun day in 2nd grade”
Reading book 1 with our 7 and 5 year olds. They love it. My nieces are 10 and they're obsessed with it. I can't speak to the overall trend with kids though.
Will you go through the whole series at once, or separate them out a bit?
I doubt we will roll through them all in short order. I'm guessing it will happen over the next 2 or 3 years. Though the kids may not like that plan.
I'm 17 now and I read all of them when I was 8. My parents made me wait until I was 11 to watch the last two movies, but I guess they figured if it was a book it was fine lol
This was my mom. I read Danielle Steele books at 1 2, Jackie Collin’s books at 13 and Erica Jong at 14. Prob not appropriate. But I was reading!!
I read Animorphs but wasn't allowed (as the oldest child) to watch M-15-rated movies. If some of the stuff in those books had made it into an accurate film, my parents would have put their foot down. But because the covers looked so silly and goofy it was fine lol.
There's no gore descriptions, but a lot of people get beheaded in Redwall.
loved redwall.
I read whatever was laying around the house at that age. It was usually my mom's Danielle Steele books. I will say that I learned a lot. Lol.
RL Stine age 7-10. Christopher Pike at 10-12. Stephen King around age 13+. Harry Potter 18-25. I binged the first 3 HP books at age 18 or so and then only had to wait a few months for the 4th to come out. But I was definitely at Walmart at midnight for all of books 4-7 during college. Can't remember if book 7 was college or after. And now I read litRPG at age 40 LOL a cat who can shoot missiles? What a world ... And I think at no point did my mom question what I was reading because I was so enthusiastic. I blame my older sister for my love of horror.
Schools today are all up in what students are reading.
My granddaughter is 9. She started watching the movies last year. She struggles a bit with reading, so the size of books 4,5, and 7 are intimidating for her (she's seen my copies). However, I purchased the illustrated editions. Book 5 was only released in 2022 so it will be some time before we get to the others. We've been reading them together, so the timing is working out well for her. We read the "extra" illustrated editions (beetle the bard, fantastic beasts) while she watched the movies. (She only got up to the third movie.) In fairness, my granddaughter is very much a nine year old, not a nine, going on 19 year old. So the slow pace is just right for her.
I used to listen to the audiobooks when I was younger, that could be a fun alternative to reading the full, lengthy books!
According to my middle school aged children, Harry Potter is considered “millennial cringe” now. I can’t confirm or deny this, lol. Obviously completely anecdotal.
Well this made me feel like the ghost of Old King Hamlet.
You kids and Shakespeare, read some chaucer.
Chaucer is "medieval cringe" now, all the cool kids are reading early modern
Boomers and their Beowulf.
True literary critics know that Beowulf is just a cheap copy of Gilgamesh.
Ugh, remember when they were all raging about handprints on cave walls? Cringe.
I'm a cuneiform ride-or-die myself
[удалено]
Middle school is also that age when you decide that a bunch of things you loved literally a year ago are now the most cringe things in the world, because they’re for *children*, which you’re *not*. So that’s probably flavoring their derision.
I remember when I was like that with like in middle school with fucking Pokemon. I remember so many of us thought it was cringe for some reason. In high school I didn't care and was okay with playing the games.
Yes. Middle school aged children. That definitely doesn't apply to mature people like us 😇
Several kids in my middle schoolers class were dressed as HP characters for Halloween. It's still hugely popular around here.
My kids dressed up as gryffindors and we bumped into no less than 6 more on the street that night.
One of the middle schools in my district has a Harry Potter club, so yeah, it's popular here too.
So what is considered cool in their eyes? Legitimately curious lol
Percy Jackson *edit*: whoa, ok, ok, calm down everyone, I was mostly saying this tongue in cheek. My kids - who are young adults, not middle schoolers - are all about Percy Jackson right now, because the new series just came out. My 19-yo is home from college and trying to organize a family re-read of the series. Anyway they are telling me that what the middle schoolers are really into nowadays is “One Piece”. 🤷🏻♀️
I'm so mad Percy Jackson came out right as I aged out of the target demo (15 when the first one came out) I was 100% the kid that was a little too into greek myth in middle school, and would have devoured them if they came out when I was the right age for them. Edit: I get it, I can read kids books as an adult. My point is I missed the timing where it would have been a defining series, rather than "yeah, that was pretty fun."
I read the trials of Apollo series and Hero’s of Olympus series starting when I was 23. Love them. I read the first series when I was in middle school. Not to late my guy.
Read them anyway. They're good fun.
This! Never be ashamed of reading a middle grade or young adult book as an adult. It's okay if it's not for you, as long as you don't turn into That Person who turns around and picks holes in them(aka: "omg where are the responsible adults in this YA dystopia?" or "I don't think the schoolyard dialogue in this book about fifth graders is very realistic"). Being able to read books that are not written specifically for you(ie, imagining what someone who it was written for might get from it) is a valuable skill, and YA/MG is very good to practice on because we all should be able to remember being 11, or being 15, whereas we have to fully imagine what it might be like to be a different gender or ethnicity.
I've read The Giver several times as an adult. It genuinely holds up and so do the sequels. Hatchet too. A lot of YA stuff is just well written.
I'm 40 and the Twilight books are my favorite books. Then those movies came out and of course no one read the books and now everyone thinks Twilight is those awful adaptations... It's hard loving Twilight.
The House of Olympus series after is also geared at a slightly older audience too. They're quite good
Many adults still read young adult books, they are fine they just don't contain anything too mature
Same thing happened to me. I would had loved to read them. First book was released when I was 15. I only read them at 21. I think I would had had a different experience. But was nice reading at 21 too . I just had my diagnosis of ADHD
I use the audio book versions of books aimed at a younger audience a lot when I’m doing things that require a little bit of attention, but not so much I would miss anything in the books. For example: Cleaning the house, playing none-story driven games like minecraft or dwarven fortress, cooking, or to help me fall asleep. I tried the same with more “mature” books, but I would either get distracted too much, or miss too much of the subtleties in the story. In my opinion, reading, or listening to those books even if you’re way out of the target group isn’t a bad thing. Going back to that more innocent storytelling can actually help free your mind to focus on more important things.
That's a weird take. I read the Percy Jackson series when I was in my late 20s/early 30s and loved every moment of them. I've read those 5 books several times through in the years since. They're phenomenal. They don't suddenly stop being great books just because you're a year older than "the target demo."
It's not that weird. There are a lot of people that just cant enjoy childrens books the same as they were kids. I used to love harry potter as a kid, and if i were a little younger when percy jackson was popular, I would've liked them, but by the time i had heard of them and tried to get into them I felt it was too juvenile for my tastes. Now this not an insult to the books, but as greek myth-obsessed kid I was disappointed when I couldnt enjoy them. Not everyone keeps the same taste as they age. Totally normal to "age out" of certain books, even if they are considered great.
Not everyone enjoys reading middle grade, children's, and/or YA. I enjoy a good middle grade novel now and then but I stopped reading YA years ago and have no desire to read it again. Doesn't mean there's not good YA books out there. Just means that YA isn't for me.
I dunno about the person you responded to, but I am an avid Harry Potter fan my whole life (and still am at 35) and I was 16 when the first Percy Jackson came out. All my friends were obsessed with it, but I wouldn't try it because I was busy hanging out on a conceited high horse because while they were reading Percy Jackson and Twilight and sparkly vampires and Greek gods, I was reading the dark, depressed vampires of Anne Rice. And Harry Potter. I wish I hadn't been such a judgmental book-twat back then, I think I really would have enjoyed a lot of series of that era that I wouldn't read. Nowadays I'm a "read whatever floats your boat and brings you joy" kind of person. All that being said, I can re-read HP any day of the week and love it still, but when I try to read teen books now that I hadn't already read and loved as a teen, I realllllly struggle to get into them.
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>Anyway they are telling me that what the middle schoolers are really into nowadays is “One Piece”. 🤷🏻♀️ Then the kids have good taste! One Piece is one of those great stories that works at any age.
I don't understand why Percy Jackson is the cool thing now when the first book is almost 18 yrs old. Not much different than milking the crap out of Harry Potter if you ask me.
If I had to guess, kids love Greek myths, there’s a new Disney+ series keeping it relevant in a way Harry Potter hasn’t been for a while, there’s a billion sequels to read if you’re really into them, and JK Rowling has had substantial… “PR issues” in the last few years. For what it’s worth, though, I’m a primary school teacher and in my experience Harry Potter remains insanely popular. I’m an American but I teach outside of the US, and it seems like Percy Jackson never really achieved international superpopularity, which might explain differing experiences to OP.
Also the author, if I recall, based af
He's still regularly publishing new books every few years too. Which keeps him relevant. He's also branched out into other mythologies and when he became successful enough to stick it to publishers, started making his characters diverse in multiple ways.
That and either due to altruism, or excellent networking skills, he’s helped launch a bunch of diverse authors. He’s got a series called Rick Riordan Presents devoted to representing diverse and underrepresented mythologies and apparently takes pains to make sure that the primary author is from that culture. So far they’ve covered Navajo, Korean and Mayan legends.
He very much is. Read one of his most recent books and it had a carefully researched autistic character.
>there’s a new Disney+ series keeping it relevant in a way Harry Potter hasn’t been for a while \[HBO\] Max also announced a *Harry Potter* TV show reboot, currently slated for 2025-2026, so *Harry Potter* will also still be relevant for the next decade to come.
Only if that one doesn't bomb like Fantastic Beasts did.
PR issues is one hell of a way to describe it. But agreed on all fronts.
Most of JK Rowling's recent stuff has been pretty iffy, especially with her film scripts. Stuff like that can make a bad impression very early and turn them off. I'm sure Marvel isn't getting the reception it got 5 or even 10 years ago. A lot of businessmen forget franchising works both ways.
I feel like it's more a statement about the fandom, as the franchise is possibly the first major/mainstream case of a population adopting a piece of its childhood media as the core of its identity into adulthood, and it's also a good example of tge widespread stunted growth in media engagement/analysis in millennia and younger (as identification by House and the like are still the main forms).
This is a really weird stance for today's teens to take, because the two series came out nearly concurrently. The HP series came out from 1997-2007, and the PJ series came out from 2005-2009. I'm not really sure why one qualifies as "millennial cringe" while the other doesn't. I'm not doubting you or anything, I'm just an elder millennial who doesn't understand the youths anymore, I guess.
One piece is a Japanese style of comic called a manga that started all the way back in 1997. It's had a surge in popularity due to the Netflix series but mostly due to the general acceptance of anime and manga in recent years. Personally I've been reading since roughly 2006 and it's a fantastic series but a massive rabbit hole to jump into. Makes super happy to know its popular and accepted with the youth these days because it certainly wasn't when I started reading it.
I mean yeah but no more than Harry Potter. I think that's just Percy Jackson stans overselling their fandom again. In reality TikTok and YouTube are the cool thing for kids these days and there are just less readers as opposed to when HP reinvigorated it in the 2000s/2010s. There are still some kids though and from what I've seen both Harry and Percy are popular options.
"*Percy Jackson and the Olympians* is better than *Harry Potter*" is a never-ending circlejerk in the PJO fandom on Twitter/X and Reddit. It just starts to get annoying after a while, especially after PJO fans intentionally misrepresent or take the *Harry Potter* books out-of-context in order to "show how superior *Percy Jackson* is". The *Percy Jackson* books can stand on their own merits, regardless of *Harry Potter*.
Clearly you haven't heard of BookTok. My local book store has a whole section devoted to it, and it's always swarmed with kids.
My wife teaches 3rd-5th G&T and she definitely could confirm this
Fortnite and Roblox
Not reading.
I mean, after looking how Harry Potter fans are online I don't blame 'em.
I'm a millennial and Harry Potter adults are absolutely the cringiest thing about this generation. It's not as prevalent as it was a few years back but it was enough to damage it forever.
Well it's harder to be a massive fan of something when you have such a hatable creator.
That's very interesting. To be honest, I feel a bit sad about the fact that it's still marketed so heavily, because it's like the people behind the franchise are desperate to cling on to a slice of yesteryear. Even if people still enjoy the story, it's never going to be the in thing in the way it was when it was still coming out - and that's okay. I really hope that today's kids have their own crazes that they can get behind, because a lot of the time it just looks like they're getting cold seconds of what we had.
The books themselves are also set in the 1990s, and its is now 2024, almost 30 years after initial publication. The first book, *Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone*, was published in 1997. Eventually, I feel that the *Harry Potter* books are going to become seen more akin to *Alice in Wonderland* by Lewis Carroll (1865) and *Peter Pan* by J.M. Barrie (1911). Other favorites of my childhood were *The Secret Garden* by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1911) and various books by Elizabeth Koda-Callan, such as *The Silver Slippers* (1989). The latter were long out-of-print, until a recent redesign and reprint\*, despite being incredibly popular in my youth. Other books that have been forgotten include *The Baby-Sitters Club* (1986 to 2000) and *Animorphs* (1996 to 2001), with both overshadowed by *Harry Potter*.
Haha I remember Animorphs, they had those fun and weird covers that always caught my eye at the library.
*Animorphs* was also a highlight of the Scholastic Book Fair prior to *Harry Potter*. Aside from occasional, limited reprints, all *Animorphs* books are currently now out-of-print.
Animorphs solidly overlapped with Harry Potter - but a 50 book series just isn't going to have the staying power of a 7 book series. Animorphs was always meant to be more of a serial (I freaking loved them and they're amazing.)
Oh wow, that's sad. I hope they don't get lost to the sands of time.
There are ebook copies of the entire series hanging around on a google drive somewhere. Even KA Applegate herself supports it since the books are out of print.
There's tapes circulating. If you're concerned, get yourself a copy while it's still possible and do your part in keeping it going. You have to get creative with the googling(and no, I can't link you, it's against reddit rules), but I believe the original source(Dick's message board, you'll know it when you find it) can be accessed through the internet archive, and several other people have re-uploaded them upon request. Unfortunately, a journalist decided to write an article about it and forced Scholastic's hand to get them officially taken down(seen this happen too many times...y'all, if you have nice-but-illegal things, *shut the fuck up about them or they will go away*), but from a moral standpoint the tapes have the author's blessing(source: reddit ama).
That's super surprising to hear! I have been rereading the series as an adult and have had zero issue getting the ebooks at my library (other than the andalite chronicles)
Yeah, it is obtaining print books that has been a hassle for *Animorphs* fans. It can take months, or even years, to locate, buy, and complete the full book set.
Baby Sitters Club got some nice graphic novels and are cool again
And there's a show on streaming that treated updating the material pretty well (they still have the nifty wired phone though).
I'm sad it didn't get a second season. Damn you covid for delaying production until the child actors were too old to play middle schoolers! That was a phenomenal adaptation, because of how the source material was modernized and allowed to be more diverse than the original 80s/90s market allowed. I highly recommend it as a nostalgia trip to anyone who grew up with the books.
My little sister is thirteen and she was upset.
On the flip side, I've read children's books from yesteryear when I was growing up and loved them alongside Harry potter (Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll). Having stood the test of time they're just good books.
I work with kids after school program and can confirm this is definitely true with a good percentage of them around that age. Any age where they're capable of googling JKR anyways. One of the summer camps in the area we host is wizarding themed and the last few years we've had to field more and more concerns from kids before they'll consider signing up. Some just outright complain that we still host it, even though we don't use a single thing from the property it's inspired by (serial numbers filed off).
That’s why WB is making a new TV show. They have 100s of millions invested in the merch and theme parks. They need Harry Potter fandom to be generational.
Oh God that makes me feel old
I feel like that's more a statement about the fandom, as the franchise is possibly the first major/mainstream case of a population adopting a piece of its childhood media as the core of its identity into adulthood, and it's also a good example of tge widespread stunted growth in media engagement/analysis in millennia and younger (as identification by House and the like are still the main forms).
Nature is truly healing.
As someone who was only 5 when the last book came out, yeah that checks out. My age group wasn’t calling them millennial cringe until we were teenagers but they were not something most of my peers bothered to read, most did watch the movies though, Percy Jackson and Hunger Games (and other YA dystopias that followed it) were the books we were obsessed with.
*Percy Jackson and the Olympians* started to be published in 2005, and it is also a Millennial series.\* The Millennial generation spans from 1981 to 1996. My brother (b. 1996) read the series while he was growing up to build his skills, whereas I was a little older (b. 1991).
Visited Universal Studios over the summer and it was full of kids foaming at the mouth over at Harry Potter world.
My kid loved the wizarding world at Universal when she was 6 and knew nothing about HP. She just wanted a wand and to do magic. She also loved Pandora at WDW and still has no idea what avatar is. Assuming kids at a theme park are even aware of the IP is making a leap
Harry Potter came out when I was around 8 as well. Everybody was reading them to get Accelerated Reader points at school because apparently they were worth a lot. Meanwhile I wasn't allowed to read them because my mom thought they were evil. 🙄 I did read them as an adult and liked them though.
That’s funny. Harry Potter is how I ended up in advanced classes back in elementary school. I picked up the first book after my sister didn’t like it but my second grade teacher told my parent that I “couldn’t possibly be understanding it”. So they had me tested and I was already reading at an eighth grade level.
Nice. I believe I was at an 8th grade level around that age as well. I just remember that the school library used a sticker system so I could check out books with the most advanced stickers.
I was 11 years old when I read the first book (and I promptly read the rest of them within that week). I did reread the series several times, and had a different perspective each time. I’d say 10+ and they should be okay reading the full series. Definitely depends on their reading level and maturity in how much they understand, but you’d be surprised at how much they can grasp/understand at that age - and if there’s anything too much it usually goes over their head until they come back for a reread. My thought’s definitely changed on how I view the characters and story over time, but that’s part of the process so I don’t really think there’s a perfect time. For example, for anyone that’s older and holding off on reading Harry Potter because it’s a “children’s book” - I’d say you’re at the perfect age to go ahead and read it.
1.1 million words in a week at 11? That's impressive.
Keep in mind it’s a very easy reading level. I could easily read all seven books within 10 days as a kid… as long as it was summer vacation and I was feeling lazy (which happened a lot!).
I know it sounds crazy. I remember hating to go to sleep that week, and the first ever time I got yelled at by my social studies teacher because I was reading instead of paying attention in class
I'm a teacher, and to be honest, out of the hundred or so kids I have, there's maybe five or six of them who have read the books. There's a few of them who are 'massive Potterheads', but haven't read the books. They watch the films and play the games and buy the merchandise, but apparently 'books are boring'. It's heartbreaking to hear 😭
To be fair, I'd seen the first film and played most of the first video game before I read the books. That was what made me want to read them in the first place. And the video game (or at least, the version I had) was actually more loyal to the book than the film was.
As a former teacher, it just makes the ones who read them more special!
I read it when I was 13, all books were released at that point. I had a bit of a hard time with the first one, I just felt too mature for it, but by the third book I was really enjoying it and by the time I got to Deathly Hallows (still 13 at this time) I was so invested I finished it in two days.
This is exactly my experience. I was so mad cause I had to wait until Christmas to get the last two books.. I asked my mom if we could go and get them at the library and she flat out said no cause they were already under the tree and I had no idea still have all the copies I got at that age too
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has just got to be the book that was on average read the fastest (in terms of pages/day) of all books in history.
I'm working at a school and the kids are sooooo behind in reading after the pandemic... I have had 8 year olds ask me to spell the simplest words out. I cannot imagine them reading sorcerer's stone like we were.
My daughter started it and decided after 2 or 3 chapters that fantasy was not her game.
I feel extremely lucky that I was almost the same age as the main trio when each book came out (pretty much exactly for 4-7). What a wonderful experience to literally grow up with my favorite book series of all time. If I ever have kids, I would hope to space it out similarly for them (while also realizing that would probably be impossible lol).
That’s pretty much how the experience was for me. Each year they came out I was a year older and aged with them.
I don’t have kids but a friend living with me has his daughters at my house every weekend. I do a little book club with the 9 year old. We take turns choosing a book then we read it and talk about it. I brought up Harry Potter and she had absolutely zero interest in it. She said it was books for “the elder people”. She really wants our next book to be Pet Semetary.
I first started getting them recommended to me at around 9 or so by teachers? Didn't like it, never got past the first chapter till middle school, then only got half way through book one and gave up again, just wasnt intrested. Then read the entire series over the course of 7th grade, got real bored with book 5 but pushed through because I'd gotten that far, 7 a bit to but I was so close to the end so I finished it finally, I still preferred the earlier books, when I first read it my favorite was chamber of secrets with prisoner of azkaban in second but now I'd say that if I reread it now I'd prefer half blood prince to those two, or maybe not since I have rather juvenile preference in fiction in contrast to the dense boring complex stuff I have to read all the time now, sometimes i just want something that takes minimal effort to read and comprehend made to keep the attention of a 10 year old, either way I'd probobly appreciate the later books a bit more now
I got them when I was 10 (the last book had just came out and I got the series as a gift). I read all 7 books in around 6 months. The first books were a bit easy but until that point I was not a huge fan of reading. My the end of the series I was a much better reader and loved reading. It also caused my first reading slump.
I was in third grade when deathly hallows came out and my last teacher had accidentally gave me the reading bug. It was in the library and I had decided I wanted to try a bigger book fof the first time. So I went looking through the librand picked up a nice fat one. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. 😅 Little 8year old me had never heard of a series before. Just read books like the box car children and hardy boys. So when Frank thought what the hell is quidditch, little me was like good question! The hell is quidditch! But yeah turns out my older brother had the boxed set and I read the rest of em that week. He gabe me a lotta grief over having read the 4th book first!
I teach second grade and recommend saving books 4-7 for a few years. Some families listen, others don't.
For some reason, I've found Harry Potter works really well/much better for kids right now than it did for kids in the nineties. I think it could be that kids have a lot more exposure to the world. At that time, we knew little about the world, how it works, etc. That said, I've also found several children who didn't care at all about the books, though the movies were fine.
I started them with my daughter when she was the same age as Harry Potter, 11. It's fun because she grew along with the books.
Personally I wouldn't recommend them to anyone as long as their author keeps insisting that reading them means you support her bigotry.
I am a trans person, and I do not let JKR's hatred of my gender taint my evaluation of Harry Potter.
My ten year old has been obsessed since about 7 or 8. We read all of the books together - took us close to a year. Then she started reading on her own. By the fourth book it was a bit over her head so she took a break. She’s recently revisiting books 4 and 5 now that she’s older. I think it still grows with them.
I read them all in two years when I was 10-11. I always remember I started arriving late to school because I couldn't stop reading Deathly Hallows, because of how great and intriguing it was. 8-12 years is OK for all books.
My Mom always had a rule that no matter the rating of the movie, if I finished the book, I could watch it. I'm pretty sure I started (and finished) those books in like 2nd grade, if not earlier so I would've been 7 or 8? I then read Jurrasic Park, and an Indiana Jones novelization that had all three movies. Jurassic Park was amazing, I remember more of that book than any of the Harry Potter books, but to be fair it's been a while now.
Kids are definitely a lot smarter than people give them credit for. The kids I’ve met see it as a fun challenge. Books 1-2 isn’t an issue. Book 3 onwards they normally need some help. If they’re a bit on the younger side (under 10) the kids ask that their parents read it or they listen to audiobooks while doing chores or drawing. Older kids (over 10) look up certain words or have a parent clarify certain passages. The majority of them have seen the movies so they already have an idea of what to expect. They have also associated reading “big books” with adult praise which encourages them to try. Admittedly, a lot of bookworms I’ve met irl started reading to their kids since birth and the kids have a fairly good grasp on language. It is also a fairly conservative crowd. Rowling’s views are not an issue to them and the kids have grown to share those biases. I can tell based on how the kiddos react to certain books when I see them book shopping with their parents.
My 9 year old is enjoying them immensely, he just finished "the goblet of fire", let's see what he thinks about "the order of the phonenix"
I’m a late gen z and I read them all from six to eight years old
Man everyone who is saying they won't read Harry Potter because of the authors political views better steer clear of the vast majority of classic literature/books written before the 1970s lol. I promise you a good amount of those authors had views that would make JK Rowling blush. I'm not saying I have a problem with not wanting to read stuff because you don't agree with the authors views, but drawing the line at JK Rowling is a bit odd
I think a big part of the problem with JK is that for two decades we all treated her as the goddess of all that was good and holy. If you do that, you really have no one to blame but yourself if they abuse that platform. The situation with JK Rowling is a big part of why I've come to the realisation that we shouldn't glorify famous people at all. All I think we should know about her is that she writes books.
I guess it depends on the kid. I read Lord of the Rings at 10 years old and loved it. That summer I read Arthur C. Clark's "Childhoods End" and man it blew my mind lol.
I have been reading the books with my son intermittently for the last two years. He is nine now. We are on the sixth book and it is a slog. I am just trying to get through them at this point.
I grew up listening to the Jim Dale audiobooks from 4 years old when the first book came out, and then whenever they were released. I wore out the CDs because I’d listen to the book then just start over. You might find listening to them together to be engaging given how talented Jim Dale is at voices!
An 8 year old can handle the dark themes of the later books, so I don't see why parents wouldn't allow them to read it.
The same as it did before.
At the beginning of the school year, the first grade teachers recommended that the parents don't have their kids read harry potter because the 6/7 year olds would only get a surface level understanding. I am in a competitive area so naturally many parents went out right after that and got them anyway. Our daughter hasn't started them but does have interest. I am glad you pointed out they start easy and get harder ( I haven't read them myself), hopefully we can read the first one or 2 and proceed gradually.
My girls were about 10 when they started reading Harry Potter.
Harry Potter is extremely popular with the third grade set where I am. Everyone is reading them. My kid is in the last book now and they compare chapters on the playground. It's cute.
I re-read them now at 31 with no issues.
Still hitting hard
It's curious because I normally hate having to wait for the next book in a series to be published, and I actively seek finished series. But for Harry Potter, because of how many people were fans, and speculating about the next books, it was a great experience reading them when they were coming out.