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My daughter, a rising first-grader, is an advanced reader. When her reading level comes up, inevitably the next question is “Have you read Harry Potte r?” It happens with adults. It happens with kids. It’s a total thing. And it rankles. It’s as if “she’s a strong reader” gets answered with “prove it.”
The Boy Who Lived is now less touchstone than milestone, an arbitrary measure of when you get to qualify as a reader.
We own the books. She’ll read them when she wants to. We’re not pushing them on her or even really suggesting them.
For one thing, even the comparatively frothy first book is pretty dark. Dahl-esque relatives and teachers, parents murdered while protecting their baby, and an evil lord tucked into the back of a teacher’s head. Just because you can read the words doesn’t mean you can handle the intensity. Our daughter once declared a book too scary because it featured a librarian who wanted to come in and dramatically change the library. Introducing her to a dark wizard who slurps up unicorn blood and tortures people seems like a bit of a leap.
Second, it’s such a blatant illustration of male privilege and patriarchy that one is tempted to think Rowling wrote it as satire. Why bother with that when there are plenty of books where the hard-working, smart, innately powerful girl isn’t a…
