And for our Harry Potter fans...

[KValley]

At the current American Psychiatric Association meeting in New Orleans, a symposium was held on the popularity of Harry Potter and the impact of the books on young readers. The panel concluded that Harry is wonderful! "The orphaned hero ...makes mistakes but comes through in the end. He not only survived an abusive childhood in the home of hateful relatives, but came out with hope and the ability to love intact" Associated Press

Now, I didn't need a panel of PhDs to tell me this, but darn if I don't love Harry all the more.

For young adult fantasy fiction fans, has anyone read the "Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman? I'm in the midst of "The Golden Compass" and I am completely captivated- it's so vivid and original. It's appropriate for older (pre-teen, teen readers). I'm just getting a head start on a reading list for my own (someday) children! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

Anyway, just wanted to shed some Harry happiness. Anyone care to join me for a butterbeer?

Julie

[JHolcomb]

DH and I are hooked on Harry Potter. They're the only books beside textbooks that I own in hardcover. I'm glad to see a report that they're good for kids- down here they're trying to ban them because they promote witchcraft or some such nonsense http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/rolleyes.gif. I've never read the books that you mentioned, but I love the genre. I've read The Chronicles of Narnia more times than I care to admit and I also love Lord of the Rings and Madeline L'Engle's stuff. Are you looking forward to the Harry movie? We are, but do we dare brave the theatre with that many kids in attendance?

[KValley]

JHolcomb-

The Chronicles of Narnia are the works against which I compare all others of this genre- my dog is named Lucy after my favorite character in the book http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif I hear they are also making a movie of Lord of the Rings- I'm not certain if they are condensing storylines-that's a lot of material for 2 hours.

Think maybe I'll take my 6 yr old niece to see Harry...that will be my excuse for going!

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

[This message has been edited by KValley (edited 05-10-2001).]

[Susan]

Julie~
Count me as another Harry Potter fan! I absolutely LOVE the books! As a former elementary teacher, I saw first hand the impact these books had on children. Three cheers for JK Rowling! They are such enchanting books that I am unsure if I want to see the movie when it comes out.

I have not read the books you mentioned but will be on the lookout for them. Thanks for the recommendation!

~~Susan~~

[JHolcomb]

Julie-
The Lord of the Rings film will actually be 3 flims-one for each book within the book. So it's really going to be a 6-8 hour movie. Much more do-able.

Jen

[KValley]

Jen, okay, that makes much more sense! Is it a cinema movie or made-for-TV (I still have to find someone to tape "Mists of Avalon" for me when that airs on TNT- don't have TV)? DO you remember the adorable Hobbit movie- when did that come out, mid-70s? Am I showing my age or what? I have the LP soundtrack stashed in a box somewhere, and now the theme song is stuck in my head http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

[mightyh]

I'm another avid Harry Potter fan... and LOVE Narnia. Want to go back and read that series again soon. So sad cause I can't remember what I did with my books from childhood.

Do you know you can go to the Harry Potter website and be sorted? http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/wink.gif Kind of childish, but fun. I got Slytherin the first time I tried it (please don't judge me forever based on that), so I had to re-try and got Gryffindor this time http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif I didn't necessarily need that, just need not to have the mark of Slytherin on me. So funny... you start thinking, "Am I like Draco??" and think of how to change your entire personality... http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

Cannot wait for the movie. The website shos the trailer, too. The cast is a little different from the way I imagined the characters, but I think they'll do a good job with the movie (at least I HOPE!).

[KValley]

I'm in Gryffindor!! Woo hoo http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/cool.gif

(Although, ahem, out of curiousity I had myself resorted and answered the questions exactly the same way and I was sorted into Slytherin- I'm sticking with my first sort http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif)


Very cool website all around.

[This message has been edited by KValley (edited 05-11-2001).]

[Susan]

mightyh~
What's the url for the web site? Thanks!

~~Susan~~

[mightyh]

it's www.harrypotter.com (http://www.harrypotter.com)

Enjoy!

[McSix]

I'm another huge Harry Potter fan. I would be willing to bet there will be just as many adults as kids attending the movie! I kept telling my 23 year old son that he would love the books. He ignored me until he found himself on a Navy ship in the Persian Gulf with a little time on his hands. He just finished the fourth book. is sharing them with a huge group of buddies, and emails constantly about his predictions for the next book. What fun! I'm a sixth grade teacher who also smiles as I watch kids clutching their HP books...or dragging the fourth one around on wheels!

[MrsReber]

Well, I haven't read any of these books, but my 9 year old neice is hooked on them! Her birthday is today and my brother and SIL are having a Harry Potter birthday party. My mom is going to dress up and tell fortunes (that's pretty funny in itself). My mom and my SIL have read all the books, too. Now if only I could write like that!

[Kerri]

Hello!

I am also a Harry Potter fan and my response when I read that you could sort yourself was "Cool, you can do that!"

Anyways, I do enjoy these books, but I am curious, do you really think they are apropriate for kids? I don't know anything about kids so I may be way off here, but it just seems like these books especially the last one, is a little much. What age do you think they are best for? Maybe 9-10+? Just wondering.

[JHolcomb]

OK, let me just start by saying that I started reading when I was 3. I was reading on a 12th grade level when I was in 2nd grade and had already read all the "good stuff" in the school library by then. So maybe I'm not the best person to answer the question about whether or not these are appropriate for children because I read a lot of stuff that was probably "not appropriate" for me at a young age. My husband, by the way, read Lord of the Rings and Ivanhoe by the time he was in third grade, and I think those are more advanced than Harry. Neither of us was damaged by reading these books, by the way http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif

While I do think some younger children are able to read these books and should be allowed to, I think that some of of the younger ones may miss the more subtle themes in the books. Like with Narnia, for instance. When I read these when I was really little I didn't realize they were an allegory. When I read them again years later I was blown away. They may understand all of the words but may not see the whole picture.

I think that a blanket statement cannot be made regarding how appropriate these are for children. Each child is different and ready for things at different ages. If I had kids I'd have to think about it. Or not-my parents never restricted books. They never needed to because I would have found some way to read whatever I wanted to anyway and my sister never cared about reading.

Anyway, I think anything that can get kids interested in reading is a very, very good thing.

Jen

[This message has been edited by JHolcomb (edited 05-11-2001).]

[KValley]

Jen,

I couldn't have said it any better than you just have and I won't even try. Brilliant.

Julie

[AmyLouise]

I love the books! I was completely hooked last summer. Any ideas for similaar books other then Narnia series?

[Alisa]

Hooray for Harry - I'm as anxious for the fifth book as any kid I know.

I work in a library and though I haven't read them, I've heard many people say that anything by Piers Anthony is the closest to HP - but they're a little more adult.

[Julie O]

KValley-

The Lord of the Rings movie 1 will be a cinema movie & is being released in December. Movie 2 will be released 12/02, Movie 3 12/03. Trailer looks good, even my very protective of the Lord of the Rings series said the trailer looked like the movie may be well-done.

[BeckyM]

My husband and I are also really enjoying the Harry Potter books. I first got into them on a long car trip by myself, when my niece (age seven) loaned me her "book on tape" copy of the first one. I enjoyed it so much that my husband wanted to hear it too. So I actually listened to that one twice before we moved on to the other ones together. It is fun for us to listen to them together as we're getting ready for bed each night. That way we're in exactly the same spot in the book, so we can discuss what we think is going to happen next. We are now anxiously waiting for our name to come to the top of the list at the library for Book 4 on tape.

I also really liked the Narnia books (maybe I should read them again to see if I additional meaning out of them this time), the Mists of Avalon (when is it going to be on TV?), and most of the Piers Anthony stuff. I would say that you have to be careful with Piers Anthony though. Some of his books are geared toward pre-teen to teen readers, and I really enjoyed them as a kid -- the series that begins with "A Spell for Chameleon" was my favorite, and I also really enjoyed the series called Incarnations of Immortality. But Piers Anthony also writes some stuff that I wouldn't want any kids I know to read, and I wouldn't even want to read myself as an adult. As a teenager, I mistakenly started a book of his short stories that I quit reading almost immediately, because it was much more sexually explicit than I was expecting or comfortable with. But in spite of that, I would still highly recommend the two series by him that I mentioned.

Another author I have really enjoyed is Madeline L'Engle. Her book "A Wrinkle in Time" and the others that follow it are really quite fascinating. And I would also recommend an author whose name I can't think of right now, but she wrote "Dragonriders of Pern" and a whole series about dragons. I know her name will come to me the minute I get off the bulletin board!

By the way, I went to the Harry Potter website to see how I got sorted, and I had the exact opposite result of KValley. I answered the questions the first time and ended up in Slytherin, so I went through a second time answering the exact same way and ended up in Gryffindor. Does anyone ever end up in Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw? I still thought it was a neat website, though I didn't take time to explore it very thoroughly yet. I'll have to show it to my husband -- he'll get a kick out of it!

[This message has been edited by BeckyM (edited 05-29-2001).]

[Alisa]

Anne McCaffrey?

[neeter]

I love HP! I'm reading them for the second time now.

Have you guys tried the Harry Potter challenge? Its a quiz where you need to get as many answers in a row correctly. The questions come from readers - its pretty difficult! http://www.cookinglight.com/bbs/smile.gif I can only get up to 5 right in a row...

Good luck: http://www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/challenge/index.htm