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Harry Potter
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From: Jonathan Hunt <jhunt24>
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 17:30:13 PST
While I've already shared the general reaction of my students to the Harry Potter books, two specific incidents came to mind in the past few days.
First, I had my class do some short writing assignments on the books I read aloud to them last year. One student--and this is the kind of thing I kick myself for not saving--wrote very articulately that she preferred The Golden Compass to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because the magic in the latter book seemed too arbitrary, echoing Roger's sentiments almost exactly. This is pretty sophisticated thinking for a fifth grader, and requires exposure to several different fantasy books (which, with me as her teacher, she obviously had). However, for many readers Harry Potter is their first real taste of fantasy.
And second, my most rabid Harry Potter fan this year isn't my best reader by any stretch, but he's a real fantasy fan. He was reading A Tolkien Bestiary for awhile before asking me, "What is Tolkien?", whereupon we had a nice discussion about The Hobbit (he'd already seen the Rankin Bass animated film) and The Lord of the Rings. He gave the latter book a shot, but gave up on it, in large part, because the text was too dense. Now he's reading and enjoying The Dark is Rising, but it, too, has very dense text. I've been thinking about his awareness of and preference for a larger, spaced out text which finally brings me to my point. For many readers, the Harry Potter books are the first really large books they've read, and they take a lot of pride in their accomplishment.
I'm sure the Harry Potter phenomenon will have many effects on the publishing industry, but the one I hope to see is more attention given to spacing words on a page so that readers can turn them more quckly and feel good about reading "more" pages. I also liked the other physical qualities of the American edition: the striking cover art, the chapter illustrations, the checkerboard imprinted on the cover, etc. Perhaps there is a lesson in this: if publishers treat their books like they are important, readers will too.
Jonathan :-)
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Received on Sun 07 Nov 1999 07:30:13 PM CST
Date: Sun, 07 Nov 1999 17:30:13 PST
While I've already shared the general reaction of my students to the Harry Potter books, two specific incidents came to mind in the past few days.
First, I had my class do some short writing assignments on the books I read aloud to them last year. One student--and this is the kind of thing I kick myself for not saving--wrote very articulately that she preferred The Golden Compass to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone because the magic in the latter book seemed too arbitrary, echoing Roger's sentiments almost exactly. This is pretty sophisticated thinking for a fifth grader, and requires exposure to several different fantasy books (which, with me as her teacher, she obviously had). However, for many readers Harry Potter is their first real taste of fantasy.
And second, my most rabid Harry Potter fan this year isn't my best reader by any stretch, but he's a real fantasy fan. He was reading A Tolkien Bestiary for awhile before asking me, "What is Tolkien?", whereupon we had a nice discussion about The Hobbit (he'd already seen the Rankin Bass animated film) and The Lord of the Rings. He gave the latter book a shot, but gave up on it, in large part, because the text was too dense. Now he's reading and enjoying The Dark is Rising, but it, too, has very dense text. I've been thinking about his awareness of and preference for a larger, spaced out text which finally brings me to my point. For many readers, the Harry Potter books are the first really large books they've read, and they take a lot of pride in their accomplishment.
I'm sure the Harry Potter phenomenon will have many effects on the publishing industry, but the one I hope to see is more attention given to spacing words on a page so that readers can turn them more quckly and feel good about reading "more" pages. I also liked the other physical qualities of the American edition: the striking cover art, the chapter illustrations, the checkerboard imprinted on the cover, etc. Perhaps there is a lesson in this: if publishers treat their books like they are important, readers will too.
Jonathan :-)
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Received on Sun 07 Nov 1999 07:30:13 PM CST
