When does the Harry Potter series get "too dark" for an 8 year old.

[Kalmia]

I have heard that at some point in the Harry Potter series the maturity level and content take a leap upward (I assume as the character matures). I have an eight year old who has read the first three books and is eager to continue. Any advice as to where to pause for a while? She is not an easily frightened child, and has read all the Rick Riordan books. Or should I let her progress through at her own pace? I, have to admit, I am not a fan, and the idea of pre-reading the series is not on the top of my to-do list.

[AK_Mom4]

Book 5 for sure - Umbridge is scary and the whole book is quite dark.  Child abuse, betrayal and the death of a parent figure.

 

Book 4 is generally ok (and certainly my favorite movie!) with only one character death.

[*Lulu*]

Between book 4 and 5 there is a definite jump.

 

That being said, if she has already read all the Riordan books I don't know that anything in the Rowling series is more troublesome/mature in nature.

[gardenmom5]

I would not allow an 8yo to read book four - I was going to say that was where it starts getting dark (and book 7 is very dark - but the end is satisfying.) and then saw he's read to that point.   then book 5 - I remember my interest really dropping off because of how dark it was getting. 

 

I won't even read them to my 8yo (he's a struggling reader.) - though 2ds was probably 10/11 when book 4 came out and we read it on a car trip.   and it was because he was the youngest and was included because the rest of us were doing something and I didn't give it much thought.  If i'd thought about it then, I probably would have waited for him.

[SailorMom]

Echoing the others......

Book 4 - at the very end - it may be ok still depending on the kid.  Certainly book 5 :)

[Serenade]

For me it was Book 4.  The graveyard scene at the end was disconcerting, and I had my kids hold off on Book 4 until the age of 10.  After that I let them continue on through at their own pace.

 

ETA:  For me, personally, that scene at the end of Book 4 was THE most disturbing part of the entire series.  Maybe after that nothing bothered me as much, but that part came as such a shock and surprise to me, and I read it as a very mature adult.

[redsquirrel]

I would say book 4 is transitional between a juvenile novel and a YA, (it is full of politics and head games and real trauma) but book 5 is really more of a YA book.

 

I had my son wait until he was 11 to read book 4 and then at 12 he finished the rest off.

 

 

[Cinder]

Book 5 for sure - Umbridge is scary and the whole book is quite dark.  Child abuse, betrayal and the death of a parent figure.

 

 

I also think book 5 is the darkest---yes, a couple people die in book 4 but the overall feel of the book isn't as dark as book 5. 5 is also a big transition in Harry's development. In the earlier books he's still a kid, still has a youthful view of the world, such as it is for a boy being hunted down by the biggest baddie of all time. But in book 5 he's an arrogant teen who thinks he knows everything, and this ends up leading to some dire consequences. I'm not sure how much of that an 8yo will get. When mine were that age they mostly just got the plot, not all the emotional baggage the characters brought to the story.

 

[SailorMom]

For me it was Book 4.  The graveyard scene at the end was disconcerting, and I had my kids hold off on Book 4 until the age of 10.  After that I let them continue on through at their own pace.

 

ETA:  For me, personally, that scene at the end of Book 4 was THE most disturbing part of the entire series.  Maybe after that nothing bothered me as much, but that part came as such a shock and surprise to me, and I read it as a very mature adult.

 

Yeah - it was pretty intense.  My kids did fine with it at about 7 and 8, but I think it really depends on how much the kids internalize.  How they handle movies at that age should give a pretty good idea.  If they can't watch anything remotely scary - hold off on book 4.

[Mom2TheTeam]

I wouldn't let my 8 year old read any of them because I would not want to have to have them stop in the middle.  And, I'm not really partial to letting an 8 year old read any of them.

 

However that said, I think most people would think book 3 is okay for an 8 year old. I personally wouldn't let my 8 year old go passed book 2...if I was letting them read them at all. ;)

 

I'm pretty conservative with content.  :)

 

ETA - I forgot to say, my kids are also very sensitive and always have been...especially my oldest who is 8.  I let him watch parts of the first and second movie.  The end scared him in both and I turned it off.

[Scrub Jay]

Honestly, it depends on the child.  We read the entire series to our daughter before she as 6 and she loved them.  She's read them on and off on her own since and she's 8 now.

[kitten18]

Between book 4 and 5 there is a definite jump.

 

That being said, if she has already read all the Riordan books I don't know that anything in the Rowling series is more troublesome/mature in nature.

I agree.

 

I do think the end of book 4 is the most emotionally difficult part of the whole series.

 

My dd listened to the whole series when she was 6/7 and I took her to the theater for the last movie when she was 7.

She is not sensitive to books/movies at all. My DS just turned 8 and he is MUCH more sensitive and isn't ready for the whole series.

[poppy]

Voldemort tortures Harry for the pleasure of doing it at the end of book 4, which I think is even more disturbing than the murder.  So I'd stop at book 3.

[Matryoshka]

I didn't let my older two even start reading till I think 11?  when I thought they could manage the whole series.  The younger dd was 8 and of course wanted to copy.  I said she could only read the first two, but she snuck the third, started to sneak the fourth and stopped herself right at the beginning of that one (isn't that the one that starts with the snake?)  She wouldn't even pick them up again (in spite of watching the first three movies ad nauseum - and she couldn't watch the rest till she read the books). until she finally read the rest from 11-12 yo.

 

So my vote is book 4. :)

[Dmmetler]

My DD read 1 and 2, and stopped. She prefers Percy to Harry because people that SHOULD be nice to Percy are, while Harry has his own family rejecting him, teachers being mean to him, and so on. I'm thinking she might like Harry more when she gets a bit older. Harry being rejected by his peers because he could talk to snakes didn't sit well with her, either-she'd give anything to speak parseltongue ;).

[Ellie]

I didn't let my older two even start reading till I think 11?  when I thought they could manage the whole series.  The younger dd was 8 and of course wanted to copy.  I said she could only read the first two, but she snuck the third, started to sneak the fourth and stopped herself right at the beginning of that one (isn't that the one that starts with the snake?)  She wouldn't even pick them up again (in spite of watching the first three movies ad nauseum - and she couldn't watch the rest till she read the books). until she finally read the rest from 11-12 yo.

 

So my vote is book 4. :)

 

Bunny trail warning:

 

I've read the whole series twice and am on my third time through, reading the Order of the Phoenix (#5) right now. I've also begun watching the movies this time as I finish each book. I was SO disappointed in the Goblet of Fire (#4); it seemed as if half the book was left out. I understand why that was (it would have required two movies to do the whole book, lol), but still...I can overlook the lack of small details such as Hogwarts students not wearing robes all the time, or doing their homework with pencils on lined notebook paper instead of with quills on parchment, but I sure missed the Dobby/house elf story line, and the long story of the Quiddich match in the beginning, and more:-)

[Just Kate]

My son read all of them at age 8 (well, he turned 9 while reading the last two). I originally thought I would make him stop after book three, but by that point he was so into them that I would have felt cruel stopping him! I read along with him and we talked about the books as he was reading them. Perhaps you could read a synopsis of each book online if you do let your 8 year old continue?

[Χά�ων]

DS listened to and then watched the complete series when he was 7. He normally cannot handle anything dark but he did fine with all 7 books.

[Word Nerd]

I'd be OK with my 8YO reading the first three now and agree that the series takes a darker turn in the fourth book. 

[kitten18]

My DD read 1 and 2, and stopped. She prefers Percy to Harry because people that SHOULD be nice to Percy are, while Harry has his own family rejecting him, teachers being mean to him, and so on. I'm thinking she might like Harry more when she gets a bit older. Harry being rejected by his peers because he could talk to snakes didn't sit well with her, either-she'd give anything to speak parseltongue ;).

I do think that Percy is lighter, even when they are fighting the titans it doesn't feel as intense to me. Overall, it's not nearly as tragic.

[Truscifi]

When ds was 8 he would not have been able to handle book 4, and certainly not anything after. I still encourage him to wait a bit longer when it comes up now and he'll be 10 this week. But he is a sensitive soul who also would not want to stop without finishing the series.

[Kathryn]

DS read them all this spring for the first time at age 7. He read the first three and then DH made him pause for a month because he was obsessing. He watched each movie as he finished each book. He's read them twice more since then. He thinks the scariest part was the Inferi. He did ask a lot of questions about why people were acting the way they were acting with the teenaged angst, but I didn't find that to be problematic. If your child is a particularly sensitive one, I'd have them stop after book 3.

[Chris in VA]

I think a lot of the darkness and mature story line goes right over the heads of most younger kids who read the books.

 

This is just my opinion, but because of this, I think kids seem "fine" with the series, when, if they had the life experience/maturity to really "get it," they would not be. There are many things that happen in HP that should be affecting, disturbing, etc. If your kid is reading about torture, murder and abuse, and it doesn't give them the slightest pause, I would assume they don't have the maturity to process those things.

 

We stopped at Book 3 until dd was 12.5.

[bobbeym]

The books definately take a darker turn at the end of Book 4.

 

Is your DD the type that would stop reading a book partway through if it bothered her, or would she come to you and talk to you about it?  If she's not, and if you're not willing to pre-read the rest of the series, I would make her wait a few years before starting book 4.

 

DS started reading the series around 7-8, but stopped somewhere in book 4.  He was probably 11-12ish before he picked the books back up and finished the series.

[Mergath]

I wouldn't let my 8 year old read any of them because I would not want to have to have them stop in the middle.  And, I'm not really partial to letting an 8 year old read any of them.

 

However that said, I think most people would think book 3 is okay for an 8 year old. I personally wouldn't let my 8 year old go passed book 2...if I was letting them read them at all. ;)

 

I'm pretty conservative with content.  :)

 

ETA - I forgot to say, my kids are also very sensitive and always have been...especially my oldest who is 8.  I let him watch parts of the first and second movie.  The end scared him in both and I turned it off.

 

Really?  The first three aren't bad at all.  I read book one to my daughter this year and she loved it.

[Kalmia]

A lot of good advice, thank you.

 

She is quite fearless, and definitely is not my highly sensitive child. (The sensitive once made me remove a book from our house once because he couldn't stand being in the same house as the picture of the scary troll.)

 

She had no trouble with Rick Riordan because the good and evil characters were very distinct and the events within were so over-the-top she would never take them seriously enough to be upset by them. Harry Potter does sound different in tone than that and I am not sure how she'd react to a dark psychological storyline versus the violent heroes quest type storyline that she finds entertaining and not at all upsetting.

 

Because of all of your good advice, I think what I will do is get book four and pre-read just that one to see if it would be okay for her, and if it is stop there. If it isn't, I will leave off at book three. She can always reread the beginning of the series when she is mature enough to complete it. We are out of the country in a place with limited bookstores, and Harry Potter was something they actually had in stock. I was hopeful it would last us a while. 

[*Lulu*]

With Punk, we started the series when he was 8. (It was the series that propelled him into reading independently.) He was so focused we decided to let him go as far as he wanted, but he stopped during book5 on his own. A year later he picked it back up and finished the series just at his 10th birthday.

 

After that we listened to audiobooks 1-4 with everyone, multiple times.

 

The deal remains that, after book1, you must independently read the book to watch the movie.

 

Sister is finishing book 5 now.

 

I am sure that a great deal of it is going over their heads. As a 3rd/4th grader who read for pleasure high school level material I can assure you I read a great deal that was over my head. There were MANY times that my mother gasped in horror when she realized what I was reading. And a few times she removed and banned books until I had "matured". (I took it as a challenge and just found a different way to get my hands on the book in question. :P )

 

Watership Down was like a whole new reading experience when I reread it in high school. (First reading was 4th grade.) When I reread Bored of the Rings and Mash in college I understood why my mother had been mortified to find an 8yo reading them.

 

I do try to help steer my kids into books that will enrich and edify, into things that are not going to burden them with age inappropriate information, but I also let them be in charge as much as possible of what they read.

[weddell]

My dd read the first three when she was about 7. I don't do a lot of book censoring but I discouraged her from reading the rest. I would have let her if she had pushed it, but I said that they got scary and she would like the stories better if she were older. Since I normally don't censor, she took my warning seriously and didn't read them. She watched the first two movies after reading the books, but not the third.

 

My 5 yo has listened to the first two audiobooks and seen the first two movies. They are his very favorite movies. He was hesitant the start the first one, but he fell instantly in love with the concepts. He won't read the books, listen to more of the audiobooks, or see the other movies until he is older. His middle name is James just like Harry and he has a scar on his forehead, although his was from a battle with a chair leg rather than Voldemort. He really fancies himself to BE Harry Potter. 

[Seeking Squirrels]

End of book 4 for sure. The graveyard scene is pretty dark. DH and I have always said that books 1-3 are kids books, books 4 and on are not. That said I'm sure it depends on the maturity of each child when they're ready for it. I haven't decided yet when I'll let mine read them. Not yet though she's starting to ask at 5.5.

[Dahliarw]

It depends on your child.  I allowed my 8yo to read all of them, he was not scared and it was not an issue for him.  I had read them myself, so we could discuss what was in them.  He handled them fine.

 

Other children may have a harder time with them, though.

[vonfirmath]

Book 5 made me, as a reader, so angry I wanted to throw the book across the room. It was SO unfair and...

 

well, she does a good job of writing Harry's emotions but I won't reread it. I don't like what it does to me. When I rearead the series. I skip from Book 4 to 6.

 

[Farmgirl70]

My kids were young as the series started coming out.  They started when they were about the same age as Harry in the books and progressed reading them at about that same pace, meaning that they were close to Harry's age as they read each of the books.  

 

That worked out really well for us.  Now, of course, we had to wait for the books to be released.  I'm not sure if I'd have the discipline to voluntarily replicate that….

 

The other consideration I would have is that the later books have more teen romantic relationship content--nothing really inappropriate, but it would've not been super interesting to my kids as 8 year olds.  

[SwallowTail]

My dd became overwhelmed at the end of book 5, and while she has been exposed to book 6 a few times, she won't finish it.  We figure she will be more ready for it in a few years, maybe longer. 

[Kathryn]

Book 5 made me, as a reader, so angry I wanted to throw the book across the room. It was SO unfair and...

 

well, she does a good job of writing Harry's emotions but I won't reread it. I don't like what it does to me. When I rearead the series. I skip from Book 4 to 6.

DS felt like that also. He cried. He yelled that he hated the books and he never wanted to hear about them again. And then he picked it back up and kept reading. We had some great conversations about how authors shape their stories. And I was SO happy at his being so emotionally invested in a character (he's autistic). We've had some wonderful discussions about human emotion, attachment, and feelings of love, anger, sadness, etc., from his questions stemming from these books.

[Alice]

I also think book 5 is the darkest---yes, a couple people die in book 4 but the overall feel of the book isn't as dark as book 5. 5 is also a big transition in Harry's development. In the earlier books he's still a kid, still has a youthful view of the world, such as it is for a boy being hunted down by the biggest baddie of all time. But in book 5 he's an arrogant teen who thinks he knows everything, and this ends up leading to some dire consequences. I'm not sure how much of that an 8yo will get. When mine were that age they mostly just got the plot, not all the emotional baggage the characters brought to the story.

 

 

 

I think a lot of the darkness and mature story line goes right over the heads of most younger kids who read the books.

 

This is just my opinion, but because of this, I think kids seem "fine" with the series, when, if they had the life experience/maturity to really "get it," they would not be. There are many things that happen in HP that should be affecting, disturbing, etc. If your kid is reading about torture, murder and abuse, and it doesn't give them the slightest pause, I would assume they don't have the maturity to process those things.

 

We stopped at Book 3 until dd was 12.5.

 

I think these are really good points. My son read the first three at about age 7 or 8, I can’t remember. I made him stop there and had planned for him to wait a few years to finish. It wasn’t so much that I thought he couldn’t handle them but that I thought it would be a better reading experience read later. But his best friend’s parents let him (friend) keep reading about a year later so I let ds read also. Friend is the kind that would definitely give away all the good parts and I thought that would be sad for ds and he really wanted to read them. 

 

He was ok with them. I think for him there was a clear good and evil and that made it easier. He’s also much more ok with reading things that are clear fantasy than reading something scary that could really happen. He’s pretty good about not reading things that are scaring him or disturbing him so I was confident that he’d stop if he was bothered. 

 

Short answer...I think it’s best to wait a bit for books 4-7 just so that all the teen stuff and boy-girl stuff makes more sense and you get more of the deeper issues. And you have to know your own kid. Some kids will be fine at 8 or 9, some would be traumatized.

[Kim in Appalachia]

We listened to the books on long car trips, with our whole crew in the van, so my youngest was not even 7 when we got to the last 2 books, and he has seen all of the movies (he's 8 now).  

 

It really depends on the kid.  Some kids handle it, others can be afraid.  If your child has been reading Rick Rordian, I would think he'd be fine.

[Alicia64]

This has been a really helpful thread. I let my 8 year olds read -- well, I read aloud to them -- to the end of book 4. I'd also heard not to let them go further. Now that they're 10.5 they're begging to read book 5.

 

I think based on this thread that I'll hold off another year.

 

Alley

[SailorMom]

I think a lot of the darkness and mature story line goes right over the heads of most younger kids who read the books.

 

This is just my opinion, but because of this, I think kids seem "fine" with the series, when, if they had the life experience/maturity to really "get it," they would not be. There are many things that happen in HP that should be affecting, disturbing, etc. If your kid is reading about torture, murder and abuse, and it doesn't give them the slightest pause, I would assume they don't have the maturity to process those things.

 

We stopped at Book 3 until dd was 12.5.

 

No one said that their kids read without "the slightest pause", just that they could handle them and didn't have nightmares.    I read all 7 books to my sons aloud and we frequently stopped to discuss what was going on, why things were happening, their concerns, and what was disturbing them about a plot line or scene. 

There is a larger plot that is easier for younger kids to follow right along with the more complex plots and themes.  My sons both re-read the books when they got older (12 and up) and I'm sure they got more out of them as far as depth.

[Luanne]

Even the author stated that this book series was written for the age of the main characters.  Starting with book one at age 11 and then progressing at one book a year until they are teenagers.  I am in the camp that wouldn't allow at 8 year old to read any of the books, but that is just my opinion. 

[DB in NJ]

Yup, Book 4. Up until then, it's more kiddish and not so dark. From the end of Book 4 on, I'd wait.

[Jackie]

Since you're not thrilled with pre-reading, this might save you some work. On book four, start on page 605 and read to the end. Just saved you 604 pages! The dark parts that everyone is referring to start around there.

 

If you read that and are fine with proceeding, save the rest of your pre-reading energy for book 5. That one you'll have to read cover to cover to determine appropriateness.

[ocelotmom]

My 10 year old enjoyed the first 4 books, but was devastated by book 5 and (over a year later) refuses to read further. The upsetting part of book 4 didn't have the same level of emotional attachment as the one in book 5.

[Starr]

It's time to start reading those books mom. :D They are fun and you will be able to discuss them with her. 

[Lizzie in Ma]

I hated Order of the Phoenix, Dolores Umbridge pushes my righteous indignation button to the point where I get insane.  Can't watch the movie either.

That having been said, we started our youngest on them when she was of age to go to Hogwarts, so 11.  She plowed through them all in a year.  The same year I printed out and covered all her books with HP themed course covers and she loved them and wore her robes and carried her wand every day.

We all re-read them on occasion and still cry like a baby over parts of them.  Sadly, when Richard Harris was no longer Dumbledore, I didn't even care when he died in the movies, though the book still makes me sob.  But I digress, yes, they get darker as Harry matures indeed, appropriately so for the storyline.  If your dc is sensitive you may want to hold off.