Last week, a friend asked over email how young is too young to introduce his child to Star Wars. It reminded me of my nephews who were reading through Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets with their mom (my sister), but had to stop because the Deathday Party was too scary for them. I didn’t remember it being scary in the slightest. Then I remembered that lots of seemingly benign movies (Neverending Story, Back to the Future Part II, Enemy Mine) gave me nightmares as a kid.

So I made a survey. If you want to take it, go here.

From the responses I’ve already gotten, here are some of the interesting tidbits:

• There was a general consensus that the right age for the Star Wars trilogy is 5 years old. There was considerable dissent over the Star Wars prequel trilogy, with a common thread of parents waiting a few years to show their kids the prequels.
• Most people would show their kids the first 2 Harry Potter movies before reading the books. I guess those first 2 movies really are kid friendly.
• Most people would show their kids the Chronicle of Narnia movies before reading the books.
• Nearly everyone said they wouldn’t show the James Bond movies to their children until 10 or older. That’s probably smart.

Here are the median ages from all the books and movies in the survey: