It's so weird reading HP to the nieces

[conuly]

(And I have no intention of going through the series in one big lump either. Book 1 is fine for their ages, but book 7? NOT EVEN CLOSE. I'm going to stretch it out a bit.)

Reading any of my Old Favorites is like this, and one reason I insist on reading a chapter book with them even as they're outgrowing daily doses of shared picture books. (Well, Ana is, she reads them on her own mostly now, Evangeline still needs it because she can't read yet... but we'll get on this in a minute.) But Harry Potter is, well, Harry Potter. It has had so much massive (massive) discussion.... Well!

And now this leaves me with dilemmas. Should I point out to the nieces the small size of Harry's year (along with the fannish muttering that this implies a massive die-off and lack of births during and just after the first war)? Should I mention all the meaningful names as they show up? Like, if we get to PoA, should I point out that Remus is basically named Wolfy McWolfman? (A name like that is just asking for trouble. It's like Swiper on Dora. WHAT was his mom THINKING? If she'd named him "Giver" or "Sweetie" instead he'd never be a pain!) Should I mention what we know about Dean Thomas from interviews, namely that his dad was a wizard who got killed for turning down the DE? Man, I feel like one of those people who worries that their child might grow up thinking Greedo shot first!

Of course, I can't even remotely do accents when reading, so I feel silly every time I get to one of them whose accent is clearly spelled out (mostly Hagrid). How do other people handle accents when reading, anyway?

As far as Evangeline goes, I asked her teacher what level she is so I can clear out some of our older books (which I'll do when she goes back to school - she and her sister are home sick today), and her teacher said "D". This is pretty much where she ought to be at the end of this year, so I'm not concerned - she's not at all behind, nor is she so far ahead that she's likely to be bored.

Except yesterday I caught her reading "The Fire Cat", which is... not D level. But I'm thinking she may have had it partially memorized.

Ana, for her part, has discovered a profound addiction to graphic novels. She started with Rapunzel and now... sheesh. I know precious little about graphic novels for her age, but I'm learning fast!

Well, that last part was random. Let's get back to what's important - Harry Potter, and also - what are we reading next? (No, really. What ARE we reading next?)

Comments

idk

[pne]

Twilight!
War and Peace!
HP fan fiction!
Complete Shakespeare!
Tom Sawyer!

Re: idk

[conuly]

1. Sanity, please.
2. No.
3. LOL - no. (Wait - maybe the genfic? I mean, it can't ALL be twincest, right?)
4. Nah, that should be watched.
5. Well... no, not with the various language issues. I'm not up to tackling that on my own.

But I get a nagging feeling you weren't being totally serious :P

Re: idk

[pne]

I mean, it can't ALL be twincest, right?

I'm sure there's plenty of Harry/Draco to go around, too.

But there's surely also fanfic without any sex at all - I don't remember any in Methods of Rationality, for example.

But yes, I was joking with all of those.

[pne]

More seriously, though, I'll try to remember which books I read in elementary school or middle school ("junior high", I guess) and enjoyed.

Some suggestions:

* Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
* The Prydain Chronicles (The Book of Three, etc.)
* A Wizard of Earthsea
* A Wrinkle in Time
* Charlotte's Web

I don't remember when I read what so they're probably not all for the same age group, but still.

[conuly]

One of the advantages of me reading to the nieces is that they don't actually have to be on the nieces' reading level... and I can edit out some of the violence if necessary, though I try not to do too much of that.

[pne]

Hm, I was thinking less of reading level than of what interests children of different ages.

[conuly]

That's not as age-based as people think.

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I think Kira will love the Boxcar Children graphic novel. I've heard you mention them before but never looked them up. I ordered her a few. Maelle is already addicted to "reading" (sitting with a book on her lap, telling the story and pointing to the words, even if what she is saying doesn't correspond to the words) but Kira isn't. I think we still can get her plenty addicted to reading, and I hope she loves these books. (My family was like yours growing up: books everywhere, constant visits to the library, staying up late to "sneak" books, and HAVING to have flashlights under the pillows. Daniel's family read hardly any books; he had to beg to be given a book when he was 8. We both want our kids to love reading).

[conuly]

...

I didn't know there WAS a Boxcar Children graphic novel! I only know of the original book and series! (The first book was great, the series quickly degenerated into ghostwriters and inconsistencies. The kids weren't even the same ages from one book to the next, or even the same age spacing!)

Would Kira like some wordless books?

[ncp.livejournal.com]

Don't get all fannish on them. Let them discover the details on their own. The massive masssive discussion has been by adults. Especially with the first two books, kids just enjoy the story.

And please don't read a book as heavy as PoA to them when they are this young. Dementors? Betrayal? Please.

[conuly]

I wasn't about to. Dude, Evangeline's five. No PoA for her! Not yet, anyway.

[grammaravenger.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think I agree with this. They'll almost certainly read the books again when they're older, and pick up on a lot of new things then. Then they'll probably come running to you all excited and you can dump more of the fannish knowledge that isn't in the books on them!

Also, um, I never realized that thing about Harry's class being unusually small. I did realize that there was a huge mismatch between the size of Harry's class (not that many, however many it was) and the stated size of Hogwarts (1000 students?! impossible!). I just figured that J.K. Rowling was bad at math or something, I guess. Was it ever explicitly stated that other classes were significantly larger than Harry's? If it was, I totally missed it.

[conuly]

Rowling IS bad at math. Famously bad at math. Absurdly bad at math.

But all the same, various people have attempted to reconcile 10 kids per year per house WITH back in the day, Hogwarts was STUFFED with kids. The abundance of disused classrooms gets mentioned as well.

Desipte the fact that this is all because JKR had no idea how to use a calculator, she actually stumbled onto an interesting and poignant little detail.

[ncp.livejournal.com]

Rowling is HORRIBLE at math. She's admitted it publicly.

As far as class size goes, it's likely that many of the classes before Harry's were also small. Voldemort had been in power for ten years or so by then. There may have been a huge baby boom the year after Ginny's. It's also likely that Teddy Lupin's year is pretty small as well.

[conuly]

it's likely that many of the classes before Harry's were also small.

I concur. I mean, the war went on, what, a decade? And then for the NEXT decade people still thought there might be another one any minute now, they were still scared Voldy'd pop up from under the nearest stone and wreak havoc.

If I had to guess, I'd say probably there were smaller classes for a full 10 years before Harry's, then maybe a small boom after Ginny's... but not that big a boom, because some of the wizarding population of adults would have been killed or imprisoned. And then any real recovery would start after the second war. Maybe.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

I agree. Don't bog down the reading with meta stuff. Unless the child asks something. And even then, better "How are you going to find out?"

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

The idea behind the books, after all, is that Harry and the audience were supposed to be the same age, with one book every year or two, so that you went from 12 to 19.

[conuly]

11 to 18, but yeah, I know. That's why we're not going through them all at once. I'm just thinking ahead.