actually, yes, kids are reading it, and they may take a while to get here, but kids who are young NOW are starting to read the series. And it's not going to take them as long to get to book 6 as the others who had to wait for her to write them. YOu're getting a lot of little kids reading this book, however you put it.
Some kids can handle it, some kids can't. Parents need to know their kids well enough to know if they can.
as for snape: I think he's good. Because Dumbledore would have to be just insanely stupid to have trusted him in light of all the contrary evidence. Dumbledore makes mistakes, yes, he didn't know how Malfoy was going to carry off his plan, for example. But this is more than a mistake, this is a basic flaw in his way of thinking. Are you prepared to believe that about Dumbledore? It kind of goes against all the definition of his character.
man, I was still hoping for a Tonks-Harry hookup. Don't give me the age difference argument crap, especially if you don't have a problem with that for Tonks-Lupin.
Why Harry needed to pull a Spider-Man is beyond me though. He needs to not let Ginny follow him but casually just accepts Hermione and Ron? Whatever.
Just for my 2bits, snape had no choice but to kill Dumbledore. If he didn't do it, he would have died. That includes deception. Which then proves that he hadn't killed Dumbledore. Which leaves us with them BOTH dead anyway, since any one of the wizards there on the tower could have easily disposed of Dumbledore in his current condition. If Snape had attacked the other Death Eaters, the four of them together would have overpowered him, I'm sure, then finished off Dumbledore. At least this way, Snape managed to save himself and be some potential future use.
More evidence? Not just the shaking of his hand and hesitance to take the oath at the beginning, but he's actually giving Harry duelling tips at the end. Re-read the scene in that light.