Harry Potter

I hesitate to even post this. We're only on day two of an experiment. But it seems to be going well so far.

The second Harry Potter movie was on TV Saturday night. Ryan was still gone at work, and I thought that maybe Jared was old enough to enjoy, or at least not have nightmares from the Harry Potter movies. Not that he's prone to nightmares, but it just seems like he was too young before.

I asked Jared if he wanted to watch it, and asked him if he knew what Harry Potter was. He said he'd seen the books in the living room. I gave him a quick rundown of the story, and Jared said he'd give it a go.

Both boys liked the movie. Jared thought Hagrid was hilarious. They got scared when the dementors appeared, but it was the kind of scared that they open their eyes wide and say, "scary!" Not the whimpering, hide-behind-mom kind of scared.

The next day, I asked Jared how he'd liked it. He said he liked it fine. Then a crazy idea popped into my head. "Do you think you'd like to read the books?"

His eyes grew wide. "I dunno. The words are pretty small." So true! When I said I'd read with him or to him, he seemed interested. I suggested we try it at least, and he grinned. He could hardly wait to start.

He read the first paragraph. He amazingly sailed right through most of the words like "mysterious," only getting stuck on "Privet" and "involved." But I could tell he was working too hard to read the words, and wasn't really understanding the story. So I've read almost all of it since.

I keep asking him if he wants to take a break, but he usually shakes his head. Last night, I read some to him before bed. When I left his room, he sobbed, "But I didn't get enough story! Four pages isn't enough!" And he's told me that he for sure wants to "finish Year One." I told him we'd rent the movie when we're done reading the book. He's very excited about that.

We just finished chapter 3 tonight.

I've been wondering if he's comprehending the story. I mean, if you were to pick it up and read it, imagining that you're reading to a 5-year old, you would suddenly become aware of lots of hard words and strange British colloquilisms that would require explaining. I do explain a little bit, like about how there's a mail slot in the front door instead of a mailbox out by the street. And that "leapt" is another form of the word "leap." But I still wondered if he was getting it.

So I was very interested tonight when Jared asked me to stop after we read how Hagrid told Harry what had happened to his parents. He explained, quite excitedly:
"Hey, I think all that green light was the spell that bad King guy (Voldemort) used to kill Harry's parents. And I think the spell hit Harry in the forehead and gave him that cut! And I bet it bounced off his forehead and went back and killed the King guy, and that's why he went away."

Okay then. I think he understands!

Next, we'll be reading War and Peace. Just kidding.