The End

I took my daughter, Prudence, to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part Two last night. We went to a midnight show at our favorite theater. It was a carnival like atmosphere with costumes and performances. The theater was packed there were moviegoers in capes and carrying wands. There were house colors and faux British accents.We saw a dozen people who we knew. I waited in line for thirty minutes to buy a five dollar soda.

Despite the air of frivolity, my daughter cried throughout much of the movie. This series isn't just  a story to my daughter. A friend's older brother was obsessed with these books way back in 1999. He counted down the days to the next books release and talked to me of plans for the movie. So one weekend  in the spring of 2000, I started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to her. I read the whole book in one weekend. We did nothing else that weekend and at the end of the book I has nearly lost my voice and she fell in love with Harry and his friends. She was six years old.

She taught herself to read just so she could read the Harry Potter books to herself. There have been several midnight release parties at the bookstore and movie theater alike. Since then she has reread the books and watched the movies many times. The characters of JK Rowling are like old friends. She has shared much with them through the years. She has celebrated and mourned with them each time she has reread those books. Each book was bought and promptly devoured. Often she stayed up very, very late reading.  Reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was one of those nights. Near the end of the book, she came out of her room. It was after midnight and I started to scold her until I saw her face. She sobbed inconsolably in my arms while I held on tight. She cried even harder through the last book.

Although there were no more Harry books, a whole new world of magic and imagination opened up to her. Not all of the other books she has loved have had a paranormal element to them, but they have all been a portal to another world.

She cried through much of the last movie last night. Yes, it was a story of much loss, but I think she was really saddened by something else. She is seventeen now, nearly eighteen. The release of the last movie is the end of her childhood. Like Harry, Ron and Hermione, she has to face the adult world and it's sometimes ambiguous questions. She has to face loss and betrayal. She has to find love and friendship and navigate their sometimes winding path. No more can a kiss from her mother soothe all ills. She is eager to go out into the world and I find it so hard to uncurl my fingers and let her go and follow her heart, which doesn't lead her where I might wish her to go.

In the end, in that theater packed full of people it was just she and I. This time when she cried she didn't even hold my hand.

Books for Precocious Readers

This began as a reply to Morton Gray's comment. But then there were too many links to include in a comment. And once I get started talking about kids' books, I do get a bit long winded. I had the same troubles for many years. Patience was a precocious reader, but at eight years old found even Nancy Drew books too intense. In her defense, we had a Nancy Drew computer game. Prudence was bad at it and I was worse. Poor Nancy routinely died from our bad choices. Patience had good reason to worry over Nancy.

I found some of the most satisfying books for the kids at that age were some of the older titles. They have a complexity of language and story that is satisfying, while skirting some of the darker bits. Swallows and Amazons never caught with my kids, but is often recommended.  The Eager books however were much loved at our house. There are Mr Pooper's Penguins which is a new movie and other award winning books. Andrew Clements books are amusing and fun but still hold a place in my kids' bookshelves.

As he gets a bit older, there are some more modern books as well that appeal because of the interesting content, even after the reading level is a bit unchallenging, but still have that reassuring feeling that nothing bad would happen.

Anyone have anything else to recommend to a young reader who doesn't want to read anything too dark?

#yasaves

This week, there has been a lot of talk online about an article in the Wall Street Journal. The article claimed that the dark themes in the current popular YA books are bad for kids. There was a huge outcry. I won't repeat all of the arguments here. The #YAsaves on Twitter and a subsequent article in WSJ answer these questions better than I can as an author who doesn't write YA.

I don't have anything much more to add as an author, but I do have thoughts as a parent. I think the article approaches the question in completely the wrong way. My teenaged daughters have read  scads of the more sober themed YA books.

Some they  didn't like the difficult themes. Some they didn't finish because they felt uncomfortable. Some they loved despite the darkness. Some changed their lives.

But those are my kids reactions. Even my kids, who are fairly similar in tastes, don't agree. Prudence loved I am the Messenger. But it broke her heart so she won't touch The Book Thief, Patience's most favorite book ever. Not every kid is the same. The Goosebumps series was wildly popular when I volunteered in the school library. My girls never read Goosebumps and aren't going to see any of the latest horror movies. They are easily spooked. That isn't an indictment of RL Stine. That is just my children.

As parents, it's our job to know our children's limits. And YA literature covers a broad age range. Not many 17 year olds are reading what their 13 year old siblings enjoy. And it's supposed to be like that. I have sent books back to the library or book store unread. It wasn't a popular choice, but after a couple that slipped past me lead to nightmares, they understood.

Now that they are older, my kids censor their own reading. There are a few  books that went back unfinished to the library. It's very hard to find Urban Fantasy or Paranormal Romance with relatively light sexual content.

There has been rape and eating disorders, murder and casual sex, violence and mental illness. But I don't think my kids were harmed by all of the things that they have read.

The book that cause the most tears to be shed in our house is an autobiography. I think the real tragedies of someone's life are worth my daughter's tears. I know she is a better person for having a literary relationship with that author.