[Ramius]

If that was the case, then the death and torture throughout the book would have been minimized. Rowlings didn’t mind describing a scene straight out of Nazi Germany (The Muggle-born wizards at the ministry) or Hermione being tortured, but she was afraid that eight-year-olds might be upset that Harry died... If she was writing for young children, I think that the darker episodes in the book would have been more sanitized.

I would disagree. Grimms Fairy Tales is simply chock full of imagery that couldn't make an R rating today.

Or childrens' prayers taught for many years:

Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake I pray to God my soul to take.

"If I should die before I wake"?? What sort of message is that for children? :-)

[Accygirl]

Yes and most modern preschoolers haven’t read the Grimms fairytales.... They’ve only seen the Disney sanitized version of them.

[Bear_in_RoseBear]

My Mom used to read me Edgar Allen Poe poems before bed. Oh, and occasionally Richard Cory, which was one of her favorites.

[SuziQ]

"If I should die before I wake"?? What sort of message is that for children? :-)

Or like the children's song "Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies". It was sung as a reminder of carrying flowers around to mask the stench of the dead and dying during the plague. "Ashes, Ashes, we all fall down", recalls the burning of the bodies of the plague victims. Kids nowadays may not know that, but the kids who started singing it THEN knew it.

[JohnBovenmyer]

"If I should die before I wake"?? What sort of message is that for children? :-)

With the infant mortality rates where they were back when that was probably first used, a sadly realistic one - then.