Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows…Not A Children’s Novel?
I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows yesterday and I think that it was an appropriate ending to the series. But that's not what I want to comment on. The NY Times decided to keep children's books off of it's bestseller list, opting to keep a separate children's books list for such things. Obviuosly this won't have too detrimental an impact on Harry Potter sales, but I'm questioning whether or not Harry Potter should be considered children's literature at all. I was at the midnight release party and I'd venture to say that the average age was probably close to 19. Maybe that was partly due to the fact that it was midnight and close to 1:45 in the AM before we left; I don't claim to be a parenting expert. But there were a decent number of younger kids there.
But I digress. The books started out being more for children than not, but the story matured greatly with each successive book. The case in point is what I'm going to label the profanity quotient. I assume that lots of parents are going to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to their child. For a so-called children's book, I encounted quite a few damn's, bastard's, bitch's, and effing's. I don't know about you, but I can't recall any children's novel I've ever read that contained the line, "NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!" So my question is, do the more parents skip over these lines or leave it as the author intended and vehemently shout the line in their best Molly Weasley impersonation?
I'd like to think the latter.
