really? so any eleven-year-old with the common sense to realize there is no "super secret magical fantasy wizard world" is a "cynical bitch with no joy in life"? i started reading harry potter when i was about ten years old. on my eleventh birthday i had a party at the skating rink with my real friends, doing kid things like skating, telling jokes, and playing in the arcade. afterwards, we went to my house for ice cream and a spend the night. not once did i imagine that night would bring my acceptance letter to hogwarts because i realized hogwarts was invented by a woman who wrote an exceptionally good fiction series. but apparently i was just a cynical bitch with no joy in life. who knew?

Oh come now, don't take it like that, please. I am not saying that anyone who DIDN'T believe in Harry Potter and such was a cynical bitch, I am merely commenting on how other people are talking about this little girl. OMG A SMALL CHILD BELIEVES IN MAGIC WTF IS WRONG WITH HER AND HER PARENTS. There's something very sad about a world where a child is spat upon for believing in magic. These commentors are essentially slamming a kid for believing strongly in magic: they seem to think that no child should and expect them to grow up facing harsh reality at all times. If my parents expected me to not believe in magic of any kind, then yes, I consider that a life lacking joy, the joy of childish wonder. On my eleventh birthday, I too had a party with my friends. I didn't spend the day obsessing over whether or not I'd get a letter to Hogwarts. It was a hope I had, as foolish as it may have been. Believing in magic, by the way, IS a kid thing.

i agree that believing in magic is a kid thing. the question here seems to be how old a child must be before they give up some of these "kid things." at eleven, i think it's about time to start facing "harsh reality," if only because sooner or later, your peers are going to make sure you do, and it will probably be quite a bit more "harsh" than if a parent or family member takes the first steps. this kid, at 11, is probably in fifth or sixth grade. middle school is a seriously rough three years, (at least in my area), and any kid going into the sixth grade believing in harry potter definitely wouldn't have left school feeling the same way. at what age does this stop being "daw, what a cute little girl who believes in magic," and turns into, "seriously, this girl needs to grow up and face the facts"? BTW: girls like this usually turn into twilight fans. and that's what scares me.

Valid point indeed. I still believe in magic, not Harry Potter brand anymore of course, but magic nonetheless. I think eleven is way too young. If you teach a child to look at the world the way an adult does, the kid will begin to act like an adult and emulate adults in the media instead of kids made to be role models for them. Emulating adults in the media tends to result in early pregnancies. There can be a happy medium: believing in magic and facing reality at the same time. This child will eventually formulate her own opinions at her own pace, as it should be. Where I live, we don't have middle school, we have the "kindergarten to grade 8" system, so maybe it's a different mentality there. I never got made fun of for reading Harry Potter, not once in my life, nor have any of my friends. I mean, if you dress up as characters and, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, still believing 100% that Harry Potter is real, yes there is a problem. So, we've reached a conclusion that there is a line, we just need to work out the age of it. =D By the way, I've read Twilight, and it's not bad at all. I don't obsess over it, and it isn't the best book I've ever read by far. Not all the people who happen to like the novel are psychotic emo kids that think they're going to marry Edward. ;)

no one was made fun of for reading harry potter - however, they would be made fun of for believing harry potter was real. heck, when we were 12 my best friend and i dressed up as ron weasley and hermione granger for halloween. it wasn't being a fan that made you receive ridicule; it was the inability to realize the books are all fiction. i don't agree that teaching a child to think like an adult necessary leads to a child emulating adults in the media - rather i believe that any child with proper guidance would emulate personal adult role models, ie family members, teachers, family friends, etc. not that i believe you should teach an 11-year-old to think like an adult. i think an 11-year-old should think like an 11-year-old. and while i realize that encompasses a very wide spectrum of mindsets, i feel that believing in hogwarts is a bit on the "immature" side. also, i've read twilight, too - i think the first three books? they're not AWFUL, per se. just really not that great of a series for young, impressionable girls like the OP's daughter to read. if reading harry potter leads girls that age to believe in witches and magic, reading twilight would be like telling a young girl her only reason for living should be to fall in love with some hot vampire guy and have his babies. too many dependency issues in that book for me.

Another valid point. I think that comes with age, too. I thought HOGWARTS was real, not Harry Potter, until I was 12. I think that's a pretty good age to realize that it wasn't. I think it almost always does. I mean, in today's society, parents tend to not be home as much since they both work, which is perfectly fine, but it leaves the kid susceptible to outside influence far too easily. I'd rather have my kid emulate Harry Potter than Meghan Fox. If the parents could somehow get their child to look up to them despite their absence, then that's lovely. But I can say that I don't really emulate my mother: I love her and appreciate everything she's done, but I wouldn't want to be like her when I become an adult. I think a good medium here would be introducing the child to more..."adult" books. I read Lord of the Rings at age eight, and it gave me more perspective on life. And, as the child grows more and becomes a teenager, Sword of Truth. It instills morals and gives the kid great role models, even if the parent is working to put that kid through college. I'm about halfway through the second one, and I agree, they are HORRIBLE for impressionable young children. I believe the age recommendation is 12 and up, but I think it should be for teenagers. The book is perfectly fine when you're old enough to understand that it is a work of fiction, but the lessons it teaches can be misconstrued into so many negative things for young girls.

well, alright. i'm pretty sure the OP's kid isn't going to grow up to be some horrible person with no grasp on reality. haha. she might not be the most "mature" or "worldly" of her peers, but she's probably not the most "out-of-touch" or "immature," either. who am i to say where all eleven-year-olds should stand on the subject of magic anyway? i agree with your idea of the "happy medium" - whether that be taught through books, experience, parental guidance, life lessons, etc. i would think the method would depend on the family involved. i think we can both agree to (kind of, semi-) disagree here. the only thing about this FML that i found truly appalling was the child's behavior toward her mother, anyway. but then again, that may have something to do with my particular family/culture/values, so whatev. (oh! an interesting side note: i just remembered in the sixth grade, my friends and i made a harry potter video for our "gifted and talented" project of the year. it was awesome. we didn't have enough people to fill all the roles, so we ended up making a cardboard cut-out of percy weasley, and one of my friends had to act like it was her boyfriend. we also had an "attack scene" between one of us and a large stuffed snake controlled by fishing twine. good times.)

Well, people do change over time, and they do grow up, so perhaps the girl's reaction wasn't so much having her hope snuffed out as being painfully embarassed that she fell for it, and thus lashed out at the cause of her embarassment. I agree, too, on the "it depends on family" notion. My parents work all the time, which is fine, so I was left to my books to pass the time. Therefore, my happy medium was created because of a healthy balance between my awesomely childish novels and my adult ones. Oh, I agree with you on that as well. Although I can understand why she reacted the way she did, I can't condone it. Parents should be treated with respect no matter what. My mother never raised a hand to me or even raise her voice that much and I would never think of physically hurting her. I shudder to think of what family or culture would think that was perfectly acceptable. That....sounds awesome. When I was in Grade 6, we had to make cereal commercials, and ours was a mix of Final Fantasy and Harry Potter, because I take nerdiness to a whole new dimension. I dressed up like a part Chocobo and...I'm gonna leave it at that, heh heh. As a side note, we started this little off shoot borderline arguing, and now we're having a perfectly civilized and intelligent conversation. That, my friends, is the magic of Harry Potter! :P

Final Fantasy is awesome. Have you ever seen the "All About Random Battles" flash? It's intense. Also, everything else by joseph blanchette: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWudlH1VEMQ Anyway, yeah. You seem like a decent person. ;) haha. So there's hope for the OP's kid - belief-wise, if not completely unacceptable behavior towards a parent-wise.

i agree. there's a big difference between "stupid" and "unable to properly grasp reality for someone of that age group." i don't think the OP's daughter is stupid. for all i know she could be a little genius. however, i do believe she is a bit too far into her own little fantasy world, and possibly a bit immature.

Okay that actually sounds like a lot of fun, even at my age. :P Not to take seriously, but just for a bizarre experience.