From: drabkin <arcanis>
Date: Sat, 5 Jun 1999 11:09:36 -0700

Absolutely! I've written another (long) post about this, but it might be lost since I didn't notice until too late that there was an extra "t" in the subject line -- "Harry Pottter". (Oh, well, that's what happens when you don't ever use a spellchecker. Pesky things.) In my library, children who never, ever read fantasy have come in asking for "Harry Potter" -- a tribute to word-of-mouth endorsement, and the enthusiastic teacher in one elementary school who doesn't believe that anyone is "too young" for long books. Also, children who love fantasy welcome it. (And to glance sideways at one of the threads in this discussion, several kids who loved "Sorceror's Stone" and can't wait for our library to receive "Chamber of Secrets" were quite pleased to be shown some of Diana Wynne Jones' books.) As for adults, all my friends have read it, and only one (who admits to liking only hard-core science fiction) was lukewarm. Maybe (heretical question here) it is possible that even the grimmest fighter in the eternal battle between good and evil appreciates a little lightness now and then? As for me, I welcomed the respite from Arthurian and Celtic themes, much as I've enjoyed them when they were fresher and more inventive, as when Susan Cooper, Lloyd Alexander, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien used them. IMHO they have been recently really overused (I'm thinking here of the whole fantasy field, adult as well as children's) and have become too predictable. (In the latest Marion Zimmer Bradley anthology, MZB noted as unusual that one story used Japanese mythological creatures rather than Celtic ones, mentioning the ubiquity of the Celtic convention in fantasy these days.) OTOH now that I've said that, some writer will come along who writes Celtic themes so spectacularly well, the whole genre will be revitalized... (But it hasn't happened yet.)

Marian Drabkin Richmond Public Library richmond, CA
Received on Sat 05 Jun 1999 01:09:36 PM CDT