A kid would just not be interested in a romance book.

A girl kid might, but we're talking from a parent's point of view

Lol, at first glance, in such a basic state, Harry Potter doesn't seem at all child friendly.

Irony, I suppose.

Well, I'd probably flick through both of the books, and then base my descision there.

In this store, you're not allowed to touch the books, unless you're buying them

Buy both then :L x

Whichever one I think my child would enjoy more.

I wouldn't want to read my child a romance book :/

why parent?

Because that's what I'm asking

Also "Kid kills an evil guy" sounds like there'd be some sort of moral there, and if it ended up not being good or appropriate, oh well, I'd stop and find a different book.

But either way, if it was for my hypothetical child the other one sounds too romancy.

It would probably be more like "Boy goes to Wizard School". That would seem like more of a series a child would like - an adventure book, rather than a romance. Plus "Kid kills an evil guy" is kind of showing your preference towards Twilight by making HP seem more unfriendly to children.

No, the basic plot of Harry Potter is Harry avenging his parent's murder. Voldemort isn't a sub plot. All the small stuff at Hogwarts is are sub plots

I think maybe "wizard kills an evil guy" might be more appropriate...

It depends if the seller's describing the whole series of just the first one.

True, but in the first one he doesn't kill the evil guy...

Yeah, the first one would be "Orphan boy is a wizard"

Which is so cool :P

Honestly though, what parent doesn't know about these two series, and what idiot sales guy in a book store summarizes them like THIS?

^I'm also not a mother

Well, when the guy puts it THAT way, I couldn't care less. It wouldn't to just give a bit more detail. 'Girl falls for vampire' seems like the summary, but 'kid kills a bad guy' just isn't right. He doesn't even kill Voldemort until the last book, and so much more is promising before that!

Guys, read the question. "The sales guy gives you a 5 word summary of each series". It doesn't say "first book" anywhere

I read and understand the question, are we not allowed to discus other situations?

Not when discussing this question. The details of this situation is clearly stated. You can't say the outcome of this situation "depends [on] if the seller's describing the whole series of just the first one." because I already said what he's describing

Also, "Kid kills an evil guy" isn't really the plot,it's the climax. The plot would be more "wizard goes after bad guy" or "Kid goes after bad guy". Leaving out the wizard part would be like having the Twilight one say "Dramatic girl falls in love" or "It's about good looking people"

I called Harry a kid because I called Bella a girl. They're both the main characters.
I called Voldemort an evil guy instead of a bad guy because I was forced to call Edward a vampire.
Bad guy isn't the same as evil guy and vampire isn't the same as a boy.

I did put some thought and reason into this.

Twilight's plot has just as much to do with Edward being a vampire than Harry Potter does about him being a wizard.

Harry and Edward aren't the two being compared here.

I'm just stating a fact.

actually summary would be wizard rather than kid simply because harry wasnt a kid when he actually killed voldemort he was grown up

^true fact

Everything major througout the entire series contributed to Harry's efforts to Kill voldemort.

and everything major happened because of wizardry
Bella would have fallen in love whether Edward was a vampire or not. The plot was them falling in love, not him being a vampire.

yes but he didnt kill him until the very end, if i went into a bookstore tomorrow and asked for a 5 word summary on hp wizard would definatley be in it

Ok, "Kid wizard kills a guy". The fact that he's a kid is important too.

It really depends on the child's age, I suppose. If she was maybe around 12 or so, I would get Twilight. Romance, right? I would probably think she would enjoy it. But "Kid kills an evil guy" doesn't sound very child friendly.

It's weird I actually picked Twilight.

boy wizard avenges his parents, would be more apt i feel, because really that is what harry wanted more than anything

^ I agree 100%, Joda

Avenging can be done in a lot of different ways. You can avenge someone by fighting with the wrong-doer or just yelling at someone. "Avenges" is a little too broad. He HAD to kill Voldemort. Simply avenging wouldn't have done anything.

The killing was the climax, the avenging was the plot.

but his way of avenging everyone he loves that voldemort killed was to kill voldemort, he knew that if he didnt voldemort would kill a lot more people, boy wizard saves wizarding world would also fit, since he does that in pretty much every book lol

anyway, im just saying kid kills an evil guy doesnt really fir, because he doesnt kill him in every book and until the 6th he didnt even know if he would have to kill him it was really only after hunting the horcrux's with dumbledore that he realised

Wasn't it Voldemort that was constantly trying to kill Harry?

^^Harry knew as soon as he heard the Prophecy, actually. It wasn't until learning about the Horcruxes that he found out it wouldn't have mattered - he wanted to be the one to kill Voldemort to avenge his parents.

This (in 5-word summary form) seems more interesting, but it would depend on the kid and the age of the kid.

i think the plot would've been more like,
"kid rids world of evil"
or instead of evil, "prejudice"
or
"kid stopping evil with love"
something like that (or I just make crappy summaries)
The first two books weren't about Harry avenging his parent's death

^He didn't even know he had to kill Voldy until his 5th year (when Voldy returned)

The salesman is summarizing the series as a whole. It doesn't matter what he knows in the first two books. he's not saying anything about the first two books specifically

"Wizarding boy avenges parent's death" is still much better than the one you put.

We don't know how old the kid is or the gender. Also, the HP summary doesn't sound kid friendly at all. I agree with AllyAm, it should be "Wizard boy avenges parent's death" because it sounds more like the basic plot of the book.

It would depend on the age and sex of the kid. If they were younger I'd probably go with Narnia instead of either of those ("Kids travel to mystical world.") I understand that this isn't even about Narnia, but still. Anyway, of the two choices I'd say if the kid were younger or any age male I'd go with HP. However, if it were a girl over 13 I would prob go with Twilight. So, I can't really pick w/o a little more specifics.

I think the choices posted here show how obviously biased YKI is.
I don't mean this in a bad way, if I were to ask the same thing, my choices would seem biased, too.

Wow, you're very rude..

I think your five word description was a lot better (from the pick you posted). I'm a little biased as well, I prefer HP by far; however, I don't hate Twilight.

How am I being rude?
If I really am being, I'm very sorry about it.

It's obvious he was making an honest effort to not be biased, like you accuse him of being. It's not like he put down "stupid kid does stupid magic", which is his honest opinion on the series. He put something reasonable and quite accurate, and you still go on like you do. It's like anything that contributes to something that doesn't make Harry Potter look perfect deserves your harsh words.

I didn't mean to be as rude as I seemed. I just have a very strong opinion and I realized it does come off badly sometimes.

the only person who's rude is ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm a little confused. youknowit's summary doesn't work because Harry doesn't kill Voldemort in all the books, correct? If that's the case then why is "kid/boy/wizard avenges parent's death" acceptable? Harry wasn't trying to avenge their deaths in all the books either.

I think it should be,
"kid's wizard knowledge and adventures"
but never mind that, the real question is:
what five-word summary would work on potato king?

^^ I felt he was even when he wasn't really trying to are aware that he was.
He has strings of little victories over Voldy in most of the books.

i think it should be:
"potato reaches to the top"

^^PS/SS - trying to stop Quirrelmort /Snape from getting the stone.
CS - Saving Ginny from a book/ trying to stop the Chamber from being opened and killing all the muggleborns.
GoF - being forced to comepete in a tournament.

From this description, probably Twilight, since parents probably wouldn't be too into kids murdering people, especially if their kid is really young.

or maybe:
"potato crowned king of potatoes"
lol fail

Can we just, like...get a better salesguy?

ok so how about boy wizards saves the world, over and over and over lol

but bri- marie all of those things have something to do with voldemort coming back to power, so could be considered to be part of his journey into avenging his parents death

Killing/stopping Voldemort was also a part of his journey to avenge his parents death.

exactly so the entire series was spent heading towards battle to avenge his parents death, but there were minor battles in which he fought in every book, where he triumphed over voldemort in some way and brought himself closer

But the whole point was to kill Voldemort - to defeat him once and for all.

yes and he wanted to kill him to avenge his parents deaths

Exactly. So why is the summary so bad?

Maybe because the summary said "kid" ? Harry isn't a kid anymore when he defeats Voldy, right ? He's almost 18 (2 May 1998), so maybe it should be "a Wizard saves the world" ? Ok, I know it's not good, sorry :(

because one of the main points was the magic, he really should have put wizard in there lol

Before all of you HP fans shout "TRAITOR!":

A. I like vampire books D;

B. I am Asian. Therefore, unless there's something really really wrong with me, if I was a parent, I'd be an Asian parent. Asian parents are cheap. Twilight has 3 less books than HP. So therefore it would be cheaper.

Unless the sales guy prices Twi at the same price as HP; which in that case, I will attack him with mah shiny chopsticks.

i think Harry potter is more for kids and Twilight series for Teenagers,Love both,but when i get kids one day,they have to wait to they are 13-14 years old before they read Twilight,and 6-7 years old when they read HP:)

The sales guy wouldn't need to tell me a summary of each series. I'll look at the book covers and HP seems more kid friendly to me (you didn't say what age my kids would be, but I'm assuming younger than 13, otherwise teenagers would be used in place of kids). I don't think my young children would be interested in the Twilight series by the look of it. Not saying it's a bad thing, but it might confuse them wondering why a book called Twilight has a a picture of a person holding an apple in their hands.

A kid isn't usually intrested in romance (wheter is a girl or a boy , for example when I was little I was like paralel xD).If my 'kid' is 14-15 and a girl I guess Twilight.

Hmmm...kid kills evil guy actually sounds like it has some MORALS in it. Maybe my child could actually GET SOMETHING OUT OF IT. Whereas a teenage girl falling for a vampire...not so much, funnily enough.

I wouldn't want my child reading about lusty teenagers, to be honest.

How would you know what's more kid friendly based on these 5 word summaries? You think killing is more kid friendly than love?

Kid kills evil guy , isn't that the main storyline ?That he tries to kill Voldemort , and well he did it ?Yes he didn't do it in all the books lol but the point is to make a 5 word summary of the whole series.

It is a good summary, but wouldn't it be better to make it "Boy kills an evil guy"? I'm pretty sure Harry ain't a she-male, and the Twilight description specifies gender...

^^^You're not about to tell me that Twilight teaches more about Love than harry Potter are you? *sigh*

^Where in that five word summary for HP is 'love' mentioned?

I'd rather not teach my children about death and killing people at a young age. But I guess it all really depends on gender, and I want my first child to be a girl. If it's a guy, just bring him home a basketball or manga or something.

Well, as a parent I think child heroism would be interesting for my kid, and since there's that old "good beats evil" message will send some good morals to them.
Even though I prefer the bad guys.

The HP summary doesn't say anything about love

Well you need a better summary, but still i would pick that if I was a parent cause killing bad guys means your a good guy, meaning kids can learn from the hero and become better people. But still something like
Wizard Saves World From Evil
sounds a little better

not really

Uh yes really, stop being so biased. BTW have u even read the HP series? Cause since u hate it so much i was wondering if u know what your hating or u just jugded it without reading

He's read it..
It's possible to dislike Harry Potter after reading the whole thing.

My parent loves it!

I think a lot of these comments are very much "attack attack!" Everyone has there own opinion, I do feel that the definitions show some bias. However, strictly as a parent picking out a book for their child I don't see that happening much after the age of 11. And I don't feel a book about a girl falling in love with a vampire is very appropriate for that age range (5-11). Everyone's got their right to their own opinion, but if you have read the HP books you'd know that the recurring theme throughout all books is love; even though you don't get that from the title. Anyway, as a parent I think I'd have started with Narnia above either of these; but like I said, as a parent I think love stories about a girl and vampire are inappropriate. And it would depend on the gender, b/c very few boys are going to be wanting to read a love story.

When it says "kids" I immediately think of children around the age of ten. I wouldn't give my ten-year-old a romance story JUST yet.

funny how that YKI dude thinks HP is all about Harry killing Voldemort. You missed the whole point of the book. and the description btw is EXTREMELY biased. by choosing the word KILL you immediately connote something bad. by omitting the word WIZARD you also killed the main theme of HP and took away the most interesting part of the book. :/

First of all, like dejadthisvu said, boys typically wouldn't be interested in a "love" story like Twilight, whereas Harry Potter isn't just for boys or just for girls, both genders love it equally. So since I don't actually have a child, I'll pick the story that is more open to both girls and boys.

Second, I've grown up in a bookshop for all 15 years of my life, and so I'm speaking from personal experience. If you're recommending a book, you have to be a f***ing moron if you tell the customer how the 7 book series ends. The whole point is to get them interested so they want to know what happens, not tell them what happens at the very end. Because honestly, Harry Potter doesn't have a happy ending with all the good guys alive and the bad guys dead. It's bittersweet, loads of good people die too. And no one but JKR and her editor was certain that Harry would even survive and kill Voldemort.

So if I was an ignorant parent who for some reason had no idea what Harry Potter or Twilight was and your hypothetical sales guy told me that Harry Potter was about a "kid who kills an evil guy", which is obviously the ending, I would wonder why he works in a bookstore with such poor sale skills. Just saying.

Harry did kill, right?
It's what he did.
Anyone who didn't notice that must have missed the whole thing.

wow. i think you missed the whole thing, cassie. Voldemort died because the elder wand recognized its true master and it wouldn't hurt harry, so the curse ricocheted back to voldemort.

that was also not the whole point of the book. Thinking it was all about killing Voldy goes to show that somebody did not read through the books.. or at least bothered to understand it.

Or, that they understood something differently than you did.

Either way you interpret Voldemort dying, a sales person at a bookstore wouldn't tell a potential customer how a book ends...