[Selmo]

Ainaserkewen,

I read The Hobbit to my children before they could read it for themselves. I encouraged them to read LoTR as soon as their reading skills were up to it. They were older teenagers before Harry Potter was published.

I never once thought that reading and telling stories that included magic could harm them in any way. The dimmest of my daughters is of at least average intelegence. When reading The Hobbit, I didn't have to explain that Elves, Dwarves, Hobbits and dragons don't exist and that no one can realy make a ring that can turn you invisible. They could distinguise between fact and fantasy at an early age and knew without being told that LoTR and HP were only make-believe.

Interesting, exciting and a little disturbing, but not real.

For normal children, it would need a much bigger push than JRRT or JKR can give to turn them to evil.

One way to endanger children would be to tell them that reading any work that tells of witches and magic should be avoided because they are dangerous, that the super-normal powers in them are real and can be used in the real world. That would be putting a great temptation in their way.