In my day, we worked for tuppence down t'pit

My 9-year old son finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince inside 5 days (the speed-reading little so-and-so).

This afternoon the book was his first entry on Storycode. I goaded him into it mainly because we need the help here, but also because no-one is hiring chimney sweeps these days.

I gave him his own profile (just in case he wanted to do more), found the right entry and left him to it. The only problem he really had was with the question: "How erotic is the story?" (He's well-read, but not *that* well-read.)

His impression of the system was as follows:

"It's rather easy, but there should be a kid-friendly version. There were some questions I only just understood."

And what did he make of the recommendations after four codings of the story? (His was the fourth.)

Well, it included all of the other Harry Potter books and His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, which he has already read and enjoyed, but it also coughed up Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, which also happened to pop up last week when I first showed him the site and we poked around some of his favourite titles.

Ender's Game is now on the shopping list.

Tim Ireland