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If you’re like many parents, you’ve watched your children devour the Harry Potter book series for years. It’s one of the most widely read series for kids.
And maybe you, like your children, have eagerly anticipated each book and movie release, reading these “kid’s books” just as feverishly as your children.
The series has become iconic among Generation Harry, the youths who started reading the books in the beginning and who grew up with Harry.

But the books are more than just fantasy wizard tales, said child psychologist Lisa Damour, author of chapters in two books about the series: “Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays” and “Reading Harry Potter Again.”
The series is practically an encyclopedia of tweens’ and teenagers’ psychological development between ages 11 and 17.
Damour, who started reading the books because most of her adolescent clients talked about them constantly, said author J.K. Rowling did an excellent job capturing the trials and tribulations of the teenage years. “Those books really capture the challenge of normal development; just the day-to-day aspects of growing up is captured really beautifully,” Damour said.
Barbara Hague, 62, of Oklahoma City agrees. Her son and daughter-in-law urged her to read the series, and she became hooked. Hague read all seven books within a month’s time.
“All children go through those traumatic crushes, the ups and downs. Of course, not the darkness that Harry had, but all the different emotions that child has gone through — I think that’s what made that book so good is the wide range of emotions,” Hague said.
Her grandson, Parker Hague, 11, is up to the sixth book. He understands well why kids relate to the series.
“He’s a regular guy, but he’s also an awesome wizard,” Hague said.
Harry Potter represents the way many teens and preteens feel about themselves.
“Harry’s an outsider in some ways,” Damour said. “It’s clear that he doesn’t rule the school; he’s not the super-popular kid. But it turns out he’s also the most powerful, fabulous magician on the planet. He’s like the greatest hero of all time.
“Kids always want to be the special one. You want to be a celebrity. That’s how I always felt,” said Hannah Youngblood, 17, of Norman. She’s read the series multiple times.
In some ways, the Harry Potter series can be considered a self-help book for teens.
“Because it all occurs in this displaced world, this magical world that’s not so close to reality, I think it gives kids a way to sort of connect with it more because it doesn’t feel too close to home,” Damour said. “But I think it sort of shows over and over again that bumbling, not knowing what you’re doing, getting yelled at in class, thinking the adults are ridiculous — all teenagers feel this.”
Developmental stages
The series begins when Harry is 11. He is an orphan, living with a crummy set of guardians. This motif is repeated over and over in literature and fairy tales, and children this age can relate to the predicament.
“Kids feel ambivalent about their parents. They really like their parents but they also feel really annoyed by their parents. When you create two sets of parents in a story, it gives kids a way to sort of have both sets of feelings about parents — the wicked awful parent and the good parent,” Damour said.
Rowling also includes plenty of the stuff 11- and 12-year-old boys love: grossness. The first couple books have a healthy dose of guts, gross animals and other references to being dirty and gross, Damour said.
“The kind of gross poopy stuff is very exciting for 11- and 12-year-old boys,” she said.
Puberty
Rowling talks about puberty without talking about it directly, a fact that teens and preteens appreciate. She alludes to the changes teens’ bodies go through without making them feel lectured to or uncomfortable, Damour said.
“Kids don’t want adults talking about puberty. It’s not their favorite topic. It’s very unsettling to them,” she said. “And yet, in the stories, their bodies are always kind of changing.”
Rowling also shows the differences between boys and girls in romantic situations. From Harry’s first kiss to Hermione and Ron’s awkward romance, Rowling captures the mismatch between teen girls, who are more sophisticated in their romantic engagements, and teen boys, who are usually less focused on romance.
Grumpy years
As Harry starts to get older, he gets cranky. It’s typical of teenagers, Damour said, but adults often don’t tolerate it well.
“When I was reading the book, I was like, ‘If this were a real kid, we would put this kid on medications so fast,’” Damour joked. “He is so cranky through the whole thing. But the reality is he’s got good reason to be cranky, and he feels sort of out of control in some ways.”
This crankiness and anger is normal for teens, she said, because being a teen is stressful.
Robin Sell, 38, of Oklahoma City remembers her cranky years.
“I think it’s that teenage angst of the unpopular crowd,” she said. She felt that angst as a high schooler, too. “I hated high school, like Harry does.”
Damour appreciates the fact that Rowling covers that teenage angst as normal and understandable.
Moving out of self-absorption
As Harry matures toward the end of the series, at ages 16 and 17, he finally starts to realize that adults do things for their own reasons, Damour said. He comes to terms with why Professor Dumbledore didn’t give him all the information he needed and why Snape acts the way he does.
“As soon as kids start to stand back from their parents and say, ‘Oh I get it, my dad does these things because I see how he interacts with my grandpa, and I see where he comes from. And not every single thing my father does is a reflection on me or a response to me.’ As soon as kids can do that, all of a sudden you just see them become so much more mature,” Damour said.
This is the moment that kids grow up, she said. For some, it happens at the age it happened for Harry; for others, it happens earlier or later.
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