All my kids started at about 9 years – although I was worried the last book would scare them, they were fine with it all.

I think 6 +

Thankyou so much everyone for your feedback my daughter is 8 so I guess I will have a little read of a few pages to see how it is 🙂

A friend made a good point recently – her kids read fast, and although she thinks they’re reàdy for the first books, she thinks the later ones are too dark for them. So she’s not letting them start the series till they’re ready for them all.

While your children might not be able to understand the language in the books reading with them any book will encourage future reading and it is a great activity to do together. At Target (and most likely elsewhere) they have picture book versions of Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets which might be good early versions of them. My father and mother started reading The Hobbit to me when I was 5 and after a while they stopped but I loved the story so much I worked hard to read the book on my own. Just takes a spark 🙂

I think it depends upon the child and if they are reading it themselves or having it read to them. I would say a lot older for reading independently and enjoying it, maybe 11 or 12. Beware that some of the movies that accompany books have quite high ratings (like MA or M15+) so watching the movie might be off limits for a while if you follow such guidelines and they start in year 1!

My daughter started in Year 1, reading it with my husband.

I would say around 7 or 8.

I’ve often wondered this too. My son is 6 and I’m thinking of starting the first one with him.