Lenny
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I don't know if anyone else has picked up on this, but as you read through the series the style of writing seems to become older.
The Philosophers Stone is for all ages, really, and the book reflects that. Same with Chambers of Secrets.
Then you get to a darker Prisoner of Azkaban. Whereas it might still be a book the younger readers can read and enjoy, it's starting to slip into an older age group.
The same thing happens with Goblet of Fire, and the Order of the Phoenix (also, would you expect a 10-13 y/o to slog their way through a book the size of OotP, or even GoF? I know I at that age was content with books that were around 400 pages long - "Look at me mummy, I'm a brilliant reader! A whole 400 pages! Ooooh!"), both of which continue to get darker.
Then we get to HBP. The book, compared with the others, is the darkest book, dealing with more adult themes than the 5 (would you have expected to chance across Harry + Ginny, or even Ron + Lavender in the first 3 books, maybe even the 4th?). Heck, one of the characters everyone loves is mudered in cold blood.
Whilst you might still be getting 10-13 y/os reading these (my mum is a teaching assistant at my old primary school, and one of the things she does is literacy. You know, the kid goes away, reads part of a book every night, and comes back each following day to see if they've understood it and can remember it. The typical age group my mum works with is about 8-10. And she has children, who should still be on the little books with the green stickers, coming in with GoF, OotF, HBP, and saying that they've read it. I don't know about the rest of the country, but children in these here parts don't understand half of what happens in these books), I doubt that they'd take as much in, and understand as much as you, I, and everyone else on these boards would.
Quick recap: you can think of the books maturing with Harry, with PS aimed at 11 y/os, CoS at 12 y/os, and so on. If she continues this trend then DH will be aimed at the older Young Adults, 17, 18. 19 y/os. As a result I believe that the ending will be something that doesn't dip back into the 10-13 age range, simply because it will carry on as the book does.
To be perfectly honest I'd see it as an insult to older readers if the conclusion of the Harry Potter series is written as PS was, for early teens.
That being said, however, she can't exclude her first intended audience, so the ending might be written as such that it can be enjoyed by all, yet interpretted a lot deeper by the older readers.
The Philosophers Stone is for all ages, really, and the book reflects that. Same with Chambers of Secrets.
Then you get to a darker Prisoner of Azkaban. Whereas it might still be a book the younger readers can read and enjoy, it's starting to slip into an older age group.
The same thing happens with Goblet of Fire, and the Order of the Phoenix (also, would you expect a 10-13 y/o to slog their way through a book the size of OotP, or even GoF? I know I at that age was content with books that were around 400 pages long - "Look at me mummy, I'm a brilliant reader! A whole 400 pages! Ooooh!"), both of which continue to get darker.
Then we get to HBP. The book, compared with the others, is the darkest book, dealing with more adult themes than the 5 (would you have expected to chance across Harry + Ginny, or even Ron + Lavender in the first 3 books, maybe even the 4th?). Heck, one of the characters everyone loves is mudered in cold blood.
Whilst you might still be getting 10-13 y/os reading these (my mum is a teaching assistant at my old primary school, and one of the things she does is literacy. You know, the kid goes away, reads part of a book every night, and comes back each following day to see if they've understood it and can remember it. The typical age group my mum works with is about 8-10. And she has children, who should still be on the little books with the green stickers, coming in with GoF, OotF, HBP, and saying that they've read it. I don't know about the rest of the country, but children in these here parts don't understand half of what happens in these books), I doubt that they'd take as much in, and understand as much as you, I, and everyone else on these boards would.
Quick recap: you can think of the books maturing with Harry, with PS aimed at 11 y/os, CoS at 12 y/os, and so on. If she continues this trend then DH will be aimed at the older Young Adults, 17, 18. 19 y/os. As a result I believe that the ending will be something that doesn't dip back into the 10-13 age range, simply because it will carry on as the book does.
To be perfectly honest I'd see it as an insult to older readers if the conclusion of the Harry Potter series is written as PS was, for early teens.
That being said, however, she can't exclude her first intended audience, so the ending might be written as such that it can be enjoyed by all, yet interpretted a lot deeper by the older readers.
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