I've been reading the HP books since they started out, and I think they've become more graphic and violent as they've gone along. I've always told people who asked, that I thought the reader should at least be the age that Harry is in the book-- not for small children. I didn't read The Hobbit & the Ring trilogy until I was in college, but I started reading the complete works of Arthur Conan Doyle (mostly Holmes, but also the White Company) when I was twelve. It's all a matter of taste, I guess.

Maryanne