Thoughts
Reddit has decided Rowling is a creep for writing a relationship between Krum (18, so high school senior) and Hermione (15, so sophomore)
Honestly my take away from the criticism of the Harry Potter books is that the vast majority (80%) of adults do not read and have never read children's fiction, and they would be absolutely shocked and blown away if they picked up a random children's book. Harry Potter is nothing. Harry Potter is hypersterilized.
Constance is two years old! It's the whole speedrun to 'it's unethical to put minors in life or death situations'
I had the thought earlier today actually that you can't complain about children doing things in books if their parents aren't present. Like if the genre is kids-doing-things-alone then you can't complain about anything that the kids do. You just can't. They are, for the purposes of the fiction, independent adults because their aren't any real adults in the story. It's like reading Lord of the Flies—it's about kids doing things they shouldn't and 'kids shouldn't do that' is an extremely unhelpful baseline moral argument.
Five Kingdoms opens with a group of 15 year olds getting kidnapped and sold into slavery. I don't know what you want.
Okay this post isn't actually a criticism anymore it's a fun tour of messed-up things that happen in children's books.
Mr. Benedict lies to the children's guardians, de-facto kidnapping them, and sends them into mortal peril. And he's supposed to be the good guy. (And it is thoroughly explored in the book how Mr. Benedict feels guilty about this but believes it to be necessary, and he never coerces the children, he doesn't lie to them, and does everything in his power to keep them safe.)
I can't even start on Rex's *Fat Vampire*. The underage protagonist sexually assaults his girlfriend repeatedly and basically rapes a stranger (and it's a plot point and it's intentional).
Artemis Fowl is committing war crimes at like 12.
The whole premise of *The Unwanteds* is that all the neurodivergent kids are throw into a vat of boiling oil.
Eragon falls in love with a 500 year old elf. (and it's a plot point and she's disgusted by him and they have to work it out and it's awkward)
Criticizing children's fiction for treating children like adults is like criticizing horror movies for being violent. You don't have to like it. If you don't like it, that's fine. But that's the genre.