The book blog on nytimes.com reports that in the May 11th issue of The New York Times Book Review, the Best-Sellers list will not carry a Harry Potter title for the first time in almost 10 years. Wow.
J.K. Rowling’s books, which changed children’s literature forever, also created changes in the publishing world. Harry Potter was so ubiquitous on the list at one point that the Book Review editor decided to create a separate list for children’s books so other authors could have a chance to get on the fiction list. And then a separate list was created for children’s series because the individual HP books were crowding the kids’ list.
Some friends at The CA persuaded me to read the books after the third one came out. I like to read books my kids might want to read, so I borrowed a copy of “The Sorcerer’s Stone” and jumped in. About halfway through, I became a fan. I zipped through the first three — marveling at Rowling’s creativity and the ability to weave multiple layers together – and then suffered withdrawal until the fourth came out. When a new title hit the bookstores, my family knew they’d be eating pizza and leftovers, and the house would go uncleaned, until I finished the last page.
The HP phenomenon isn’t over, though. “The Half-Blood Prince” — my favorite in the series — will likely make another showing on the Best-Sellers list when the film version comes out this fall. And there’ll be another bump when the final book is set to film in two parts a couple of years from now.
What was your favorite book? Do you think HP will be as popular with the next generation of young readers? Part of the fun was trying to figure out what happens next. Now that we know, will the interest still be there?
Responses to “A magical ride”
May 5th, 2008 at 11:03 am
The HP books “changed children’s literature forever”? In what way? Let’s see, Harry Potter is a boy-hero who leads his friends in a battle of good against evil. Sounds like King Arthur, Jack the Giant Killer and the Hardy Boys to me. These are variations on ancient themes.
May 5th, 2008 at 6:55 pm
True, the theme has been done many times before. But there was something in JKR’s magic formula that worked on readers — kids and adults — like no children’s book series has done before and will have others trying to replicate her success for a long time.
I’ve worked at our school’s book sale before and watched kids, especially the boys, choose their books off the summer reading list by the number of pages they contained — the shorter the better. It was refreshing to see them not only reading the thick HP books, but to discuss them with each other and anticipate the next one with so much excitement.
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