6 Potter books later, it's time to talk about death?

6 Potter books later, it's time to talk about death? Spoiler alert: Here's the ending of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," which will be released in hardcover July 21. An exhausted, soot-covered Harry Potter stumbles into the Three Broomsticks Inn clutching an ax in one hand and Lord Voldemort's severed head in the other.

Harry sits down at an empty table and orders a Butterbeer. He's expecting Hermione and Ron, although he's not sure if either one survived Severus Snape's Wind Tunnel of Airborne Knives or Draco Malfoy's Slightly Uncomfortable Chair that Promotes Bad Posture. Ron Weasley, his robes singed, walks into the inn and plops down across from Harry.

"Last time I saw her she was being sawed in half by Moldy Markos the Malicious Magician and she wasn't inside of a box." "I saved her before I got here by casting a spell on Markos, causing him to saw himself in half both horizontally and vertically. Hermione needed about 100 stitches across her abdomen.

Madam Pomfrey's tending to that." The rock band Journey, fronted by Steve Perry, takes the stage. "Look, I already know what you 'Dungeons Dragons' losers want to hear, so let's just do it," Perry says, singing, "Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world/She took the midnight train goin' anywhere .

.." Just then James Gandolfini kicks down the door and sprays the crowd with Uzi fire.

Ron and Harry are too slow to draw their wands and are riddled with bullets. They groan as Gandolfini approaches them, handgun at the ready, and finishes them off with two more shots. "See what happens when you don't pay your protection money!

" Gandolfini yells, before storming out of the ravaged inn. Now that the bloody ending to Harry Potter has been revealed, this is as good a time as any to discuss death and how it might be perceived by young children. I say this because I saw some online news articles giving advice to parents about how they might want to explain death to their children should Harry Potter go the way of Phil Leotardo.

Were any of the articles' writers aware that adults, children and senior citizens all have been murdered in the previous six books? But it's now that parents should prepare their youngsters for death? Psychologist Theresa Cordts, who has a practice in Landing and treats children, told me that comprehending death depends on a child's age.

She gave the example of 8-year-old children who'll likely read the book. "By then I think they mostly know about death, and they should know it's fiction (in Potter) by that age," she said. "Usually by 8 to 10 somebody or something has died -- a pet, or a fish, or a relative -- and I would have expected that parents would have talked to their children about death.

That has to be a very isolated child or family that hasn't talked about that." What bugs me about all of this hand-wringing over how to help children cope with the possible death of a fictitious book character is that it reeks of overmedicating society, yet again, even though no pills are involved. "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings," published from 1937 through 1955, were popular fantasy novels geared toward children and adults alike, and I can't imagine journalists were writing pieces like, "What should you tell Jimmy if Frodo is eaten by a goblin?

" "If the children are reading these books and the mother and father know that they have no experience with death yet, this would be the perfect time to talk about death and fiction," Cordts said. Somehow, with nightly images of horror broadcast on news networks, today's youth won't need an imagined boy wizard to help them learn about the Grim Reaper. Matt Manochio can be reached at (973) 989-0652 or mmanochi@gannett.

com. Read his blog at www.dailyrecord.

com/blogs/warpedculture. 6 Potter books later, it's time to talk about death?