OK, I just finished Alan Garner's "Owl Service". It is a great book, but I am not sure the younger Harry Potter set would understand it. It is deliberatly obscure, and very spooky. I only understood it because I have read the Mabinigon, and I doubt very much if most 10-14 yr olds even know the Mab exists.

There was no need for Garner to be so obscure, the entire story could have been told in a much more straight forward manner and still been just as spooky.

Also, there is lots of Welsh and British slang and Welsh mythology references that American kids are just not going to understand. It's even possible that a lot of British kids would not understand the Welsh references.