Is Harry Potter too scary?

Just days after the premiere of the new Harry Potter Film, critics are asking, "is the film too scary for children?" The This is London site certainly think so. The movie was granted a 12A rating by the British Board of Film Control, which recommends that children under 12 be accompanied by an adult. Children put off Harry Potter? Why would this catch my eye?

Well, the BBC had a poll for the greatest novel ever written, Lord of the Rings won hands down, and Harry Potter came in fifth. Let's just say it slowly; Harry Potter (in the eyes of the British public) is the fifth best book ever written. In the same way, Radio 1 did a poll at the Milennium to ask what the best song ever written was, they voted Robbie Williams' Angels in 4th place. Now, I'm not saying any of the above are rubbish, but they're hardly high-pedigree products. They're Ant & Dec's Saturday Night, they're X Factor, they're Strictly Come Dancing, they're the shallow hits of a Playstation generation that can't be arsed to seek out anything of any depth. Don't get me wrong, I read the Da Vinci code too; and I scored it 7, if I recall - but that means that a book only has to score 7.1 or above to be adjudged better, and we all know there's 10s of thousands of novels that would all rate higher. But here's the rub .. they won't get read.

For all you can say about Harry Potter, it has forced millions of non-literate adults to read again for the first time since they were at school, and lots of kids to grow up with the series and remain interested in books. But it does tickle my sense of irony when a report like this suggests that its adoring target audience wouldn't all appreciate it, because of where it's pitched. Now adults will have to leave their nervous pre-schools at home and go and see the film on their own, without the cover of the 'family cinema trip' to hide behind, and without an adult version of the book cover to shroud their shame.