HOLD OUT
I fear, I am woefully behind the times, in as much as I remain among those few people who have not read any of Harry Potter books.
Certainly, judging from the recent accounts detailing the purchase of such tremendous numbers of the latest book in the series, I hav had opportunity to do so.
Some people deride them by saying: “They're kid's books!” We can all name a score or more of other such writings for “older youth” which have been successfully marketed to people of all ages. I'll get my chance to delve into the cavernous realms of wizardry yet- just give me time.
One thing we should all notice in this success is that young people can read and will do so if acceptable material is placed before them. We have been told and re-told that we have raised a generation of young people who cannot read; have no desire to do. it is good we are being proved so wrong.
It seems that British authoress J.W. Rawlings has touched - not a new nerve b utton to bring about this frenzy of reding by so many young people. The writing is not all that unusual or “mod”, and that too, is a positive factor concerning the books. It seems that the same old things which urged us to read as youngsters, still exist and can be re-kindled by a right kind of writing.
Rawlings' Potter Project - she still has two books planned to complete the set - may prove to be the catalyst which casue sone improvements in our writing styles which have been rather dismal and unsteady in recent decades.
Opening day sales were somewhere in the neighborhood of a million copies which is most unusual for any book. The prices ranged from $16.97 to over $30.00 per copy, depending on where you bought your copy and that adds up to a healthy entry in anyone's check book.
It is obvious by now that the magic worked by Harry Potter and his friends and associates has been in areas involving all of us and literature in general. I do not know what surprising acts of wizardy Rawlings has planned which will power her next two volumes ,but she has already worked an important change in the way we think about our young people, and their reading.
Rawlings is not alone in this phase of a revival of compelling literature for young people. Here in the United States a series of books being written by West Virginia author Mary Rodd Furbee under the collective designation “The Founding Mothers Series” is first-rate reading for young people. Read her “Ann Bailey:Frontier Scout”, for a sampler. All are illustrated biographies of women of various areas and regions in various walks of life ...Mercy Warren, Phillis Wheatley, Anne Royal, Mary Draper Ingles and others. Mary Rodd Furbee's “Outrageous Women of Colonial America” is compelling reading for both young and old.
A.L.M. June 27, 2003 [c505wds]
