Recently, my 11-year old son and I completed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I know we’re a bit behind the times, as the book was published eight years ago, but that didn’t affect our enjoyment.
My son and I have gone through many book series together, from Dr. Seuss to Benjamin Franklinstein Lives! to My Weird School to Hank Zipzer and more. However, whenever I asked if he was interested in reading Harry Potter, he declined. But Harry Potter has become an iconic series, so I decided to push it and ask him one more time. I was curious myself to see what all the hype was about.
But it was unnecessary to push this time. He said yes right away, so we began our Harry Potter journey back in October.
Harry Potter was different from the books we read in the past. Besides the fact that the material was more grown up, the series was a saga with a complex plot and many twists and turns. This complexity brought about deliberations between me and my son. We discussed love, good and evil, and judgment. We talked about the nuances of the main characters, Hermione, Ron, Dumbledore and Snape.