CCBC-Net Archives
Harry Potter
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Sharon Grover <sgrove>
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 17:35:22 -0500
Dean, your 7th and 8th graders may not find Harry "cool" anymore, but just last week I had a request for more copies in YA from our high school TAB group!
Some of my 8th grade TAB kids have given up on the public and school libraries and gone out and bought copies of their own. My fantasy kids definitely think Harry and Co. are wonderful fun, but my "realistic fiction only, please and thank you" kids are not the least bit interested.
Sharon
Sharon Grover Youth Services Collection Development Arlington County Dept. of Libraries 1015 N. Quincy Street Arlington, VA 22201 703/228Y80 (Voice Mail) 703/228Y98 (FAX) sgrove at co.arlington.va.us
A few random reflections on the big Harry deal:
* With my seventh and eighth graders, the big enthusiasm for Harry was last year. Now that Harry is so popular with younger readers, it's not so "cool" for the older readers. They've been co-opted.
* I truly did enjoy reading all three books, and I will admit to being the first around here to get #3 from Amazon, and then I got several more copies for my classroom library. I find them to be well-written, old?shioned pageturners. However, there are other books in the genre I like more and which linger longer in my mind: The Golden Compass, the Earthsea quartet, The Dark Is Rising series, etc. These are books I reread every now and then; I'm not sure I'll want to reread HP. But, I like them all; I don't feel any compulsion to put one book down because I liked another more and for different reasons.
* There are lots of positives to the HP phenomenon: more parents are reading aloud to their kids; young kids are pushing themselves to read harder books; bookstores are doing more to display good books that might catch the Harry Potter readers; etc.
* On reading HP aloud: I figure kids will find their own way to HP now. I choose other good books to read aloud. The most recent books we've read aloud to our son (age 13) are: Katherine Paterson's Preacher's Boy, Christopher Paul Curtis's Bud, Not Buddy, and wee're in the middle of Gail Carson Levine's Dave At Night. All great books. When the kids were quite young, I read aloud the whole, 14-book Oz series, all 3500 pages of it, and the kids loved them all.
* I think one part of the success of Harry, beyond the storytelling and the writing itself, is that the books are so beautifully made, especially the American editions. They feel good in the hand. They are a pleasure to open. The print is not dense, but spacious, easy on the eye, not intimidating.....
* Perhaps best of all, the HP books have shown adults who didn't know it before that there are some good books out there for their children. And for them!
Dean Schneider Ensworth School 211 Ensworth Avenue Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
~~~~~~~~~~ To remove your address from the mailing list, send a message with the header...
To: listserv at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Subject: signoff ccbc-net
Received on Wed 10 Nov 1999 04:35:22 PM CST
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1999 17:35:22 -0500
Dean, your 7th and 8th graders may not find Harry "cool" anymore, but just last week I had a request for more copies in YA from our high school TAB group!
Some of my 8th grade TAB kids have given up on the public and school libraries and gone out and bought copies of their own. My fantasy kids definitely think Harry and Co. are wonderful fun, but my "realistic fiction only, please and thank you" kids are not the least bit interested.
Sharon
Sharon Grover Youth Services Collection Development Arlington County Dept. of Libraries 1015 N. Quincy Street Arlington, VA 22201 703/228Y80 (Voice Mail) 703/228Y98 (FAX) sgrove at co.arlington.va.us
A few random reflections on the big Harry deal:
* With my seventh and eighth graders, the big enthusiasm for Harry was last year. Now that Harry is so popular with younger readers, it's not so "cool" for the older readers. They've been co-opted.
* I truly did enjoy reading all three books, and I will admit to being the first around here to get #3 from Amazon, and then I got several more copies for my classroom library. I find them to be well-written, old?shioned pageturners. However, there are other books in the genre I like more and which linger longer in my mind: The Golden Compass, the Earthsea quartet, The Dark Is Rising series, etc. These are books I reread every now and then; I'm not sure I'll want to reread HP. But, I like them all; I don't feel any compulsion to put one book down because I liked another more and for different reasons.
* There are lots of positives to the HP phenomenon: more parents are reading aloud to their kids; young kids are pushing themselves to read harder books; bookstores are doing more to display good books that might catch the Harry Potter readers; etc.
* On reading HP aloud: I figure kids will find their own way to HP now. I choose other good books to read aloud. The most recent books we've read aloud to our son (age 13) are: Katherine Paterson's Preacher's Boy, Christopher Paul Curtis's Bud, Not Buddy, and wee're in the middle of Gail Carson Levine's Dave At Night. All great books. When the kids were quite young, I read aloud the whole, 14-book Oz series, all 3500 pages of it, and the kids loved them all.
* I think one part of the success of Harry, beyond the storytelling and the writing itself, is that the books are so beautifully made, especially the American editions. They feel good in the hand. They are a pleasure to open. The print is not dense, but spacious, easy on the eye, not intimidating.....
* Perhaps best of all, the HP books have shown adults who didn't know it before that there are some good books out there for their children. And for them!
Dean Schneider Ensworth School 211 Ensworth Avenue Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
~~~~~~~~~~ To remove your address from the mailing list, send a message with the header...
To: listserv at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Subject: signoff ccbc-net
Received on Wed 10 Nov 1999 04:35:22 PM CST
