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PaperclipPerfector  8d ago (text post)   2572 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for February 14, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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That's a great idea, I'm going to try it :)

I started my kids off with Harry Potter. After watching the movies, it's much easier for them to visualize what's going on when I read. I read books 1 and 2 to my 6 year old that way.

I thought about doing the same with the Hobbit or Narnia, but the movies aren't quite as friendly to young kids. (I've also got a 1, 2, and 3 yo right now that even Narnia would be too much for. Harry Potter is full of funny scenes in between the scary ones that these other "kids" movies don't have.)

I made sure my kids watched The Hobbit, but only because they'd want to see it eventually anyways and they enjoyed it much more by watching it before the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so it was a source of excitement rather than disappointment.

Beware reading Harry Potter to kids who might still be too young for the later themes. I started reading the first book to my oldest, figuring it would take us half a year to get through each book at a few pages a night, which would give her a few years to mature as the sequels got more serious and frightening. Instead she decided that this was going to be when she started reading chapter books by herself, and then I couldn't bring myself to make her wait on the later books, nor or to forbid her watching the movies after she'd blitzed through the whole series. She at least didn't have any nightmares that she told me about...

Not that I’m biased or anything, but it’ll probably be good for her. The opportunity to plow through multiple volumes of Potter probably has a lot to do with my later taste for chunky slabs of fantasy.

Yeah, my wife wants to read Narnia to her too. She's been looking for a nicer hardcover edition that doesn't break the bank. There are a bunch of all in one hardcovers of the whole series on Amazon, but they seem suspicious. The page count seems too low (500 pages?) and the photo reviews all show horribly quality issues.

Edit: I almost forgot! We're making an earnest attempt at not being a "TV" house hold. So it's unlikely we will ever proceed from The Hobbit book to The Hobbit movies. Or for Narnia, Harry Potter, etc.

It's actually interesting, trying to raise her as long as we can without the crutch of TV. It's exhausting, for sure. Sometimes life would be a lot easier if we just threw on a DVD and walked away for an hour or two. But I think it's been worth it.

The Hobbit movies

Movies? I'm sorry, I only know of the one.

We've got an all-in-one Narnia that I got used for $2. It's fantastic for an adult, but for kids I'd go with the smaller size. The font on our all-in-one is a bit too small to be comfortable for a kid to read (or to point with you're finger at what you're reading to show a kid), and the weight is too heavy for them to comfortably carry it around. Mine is ~400 pages but they are very large (bigger than US letter paper size).

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