My wife loves the books and thus we make special plans to see the movies. I have seen them all and they have gotten sequentially better. Each one moves away from the sugary-sweet into a world that is far more interesting. A colleague who is also a writer of children’s books asked me if perhaps Rowling has betrayed the trust of her readership by making the books take darker turns as they progress. I have thought about this and I would have to say yes: if her readership remained static, having the stories and characters (as well as themes) mature as the septilogy reaches the finale would make perfect sense: readers would be getting older with the characters and would have the emotional capability to handle themes of love and loss. However, because every day a young person reads and loves a Harry Potter book, every day the readership gets younger and younger. So a child under ten may very well have read all the books and be anxiously awaiting the final chapter in the Potter saga. Children reading and excited about reading is wonderful, and I do not believe children should be at all censored, however, Rowling is a role-model and her books have influence. Children learning to deal with loss is a good thing, but before they might be intellectually ready for it? Tangent aside, the filmed adaptation of the fourth book was the strongest and does not at all suffer from having not read the books (and according to my wife who might have already pre-ordered the Special Edition DVD, neither does it suffer as an adaptation).

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