Harried Harry Hurtles Hurdles and Hurries to Harrods
As the literate Western world anxiously awaits the delivery of the new Harry Potter book on the 21st, some educational researchers are claiming that the books are not the panacea for improving children's' reading as many have claimed.
Studies are showing that even though many, many children will read a Harry Potter book, their subsequent interest in reading will taper off until it's about where it would have been anyway sans Potter. The Times article offers several plausible reasons why this might be true. The books are getting longer (going from 309 to the upcoming Deathly Hallows784 pages). Nonwhite children have trouble relating to the lily-white world of Harry and the gang (yes, I know that there's a child of color that announces the Quidditch matches and Harry gets to kiss a young Asian girl, but the major characters come out of a Wonder Bread bag.) The Times goes on to point out that appreciating narrative fiction may not be a good goal anyway, since most jobs require a working ability to quickly read and synthesize nonfiction or factual information, such as from the Internet.
I like the Harry Potter books and even if they don't significantly alter the national reading statistics, they're of some value. For one thing, they have undoubtedly inspired hundreds, if not thousands of would-be J.K. Rowlings who want to write the next fantasy book. For another, they add a new, modern classic to the pantheon of the Western world's children's literature, inspiring hope in generations of young Harrys, neglected by their family and figuratively living under a stairs, waiting for their Hagred to come and give them their birthright. How many of us that had bad childhoods don't think that someday, somewhere, we'd found out that we were more important than we had been treated hithero up to now? The magic of Harry Potter is delivering the message to children that they are special.
Posted on July 11, 2007
