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S/O: does Harry Potter turn kids into bad readers?
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Ravenclaw




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 10:28 am
little_mage wrote:
You have to read the bad stuff to appreciate the good stuff.


Yes. I can appreciate good literature, but I still enjoy silly YA thrillers. I can analyze everything wrong with them, but still read them for the plot (that is riddled with holes).
Go figure. Still enjoy it.
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DrMom




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 10:30 am
It's not the most challenging literary material, but I doubt it "turns kids into bad readers."

Any engaging book like HP can turn non-readers into readers, though. And what's wrong with that?

Besides, I'll bet many books that are classics today were considered lousy literature when they came out.
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tigerwife




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 10:43 am
Interesting thread. I recently reread Harry Potter and I appreciated it even more than the last time I did the series as a younger adult. Recently, I’ve been reading more of the English classics of the 19th century (Jane Austin, Charles Dickens), and the deep insights in human nature are pretty astounding. However, I still believe JK Rowling does the same; very relatable characters, even if some are really annoying, and she has the ability to really take you into her world which is not as simple as everyone likes to believe. I agree that Tolkien will make you work harder as you read (but it’s worth it!) and will help the reader develop some more skills; however, the “easier reads” can still fertilize a growing imagination and stretch the mind to think about all kids of wonderful ideas.

Last edited by tigerwife on Wed, Jan 23 2019, 5:49 pm; edited 1 time in total
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gamanit




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 1:55 pm
I enjoyed the Harry Potter series. I agree that Tuck Everlasting is much more of a work of art and I enjoyed the Phantom Tollbooth as well. I don't think the Phantom Tollbooth or the Roald Dahl books are on the level of quality as Tuck Everlasting though. I would put a few other books that are geared towards middle school in that category though- The Yearling, Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry, The Giver, and Number The Stars among others. I want my kids to enjoy reading though so I'll encourage them to read books that they enjoy as long as they're "kosher".
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amother
Yellow


 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 1:59 pm
tigerwife wrote:
Interesting thread. I recently reread Harry Potter and I appreciated it even more than the last time I did the series as a younger adult. Recently, I’ve been reading more of the American classics of the 19th century (Jane Austin, Charles Dickens), and the deep insights in human nature are pretty astounding. However, I still believe JK Rowling does the same; very relatable characters, even if some are really annoying, and she has the ability to really take you into her world which is not as simple as everyone likes to believe. I agree that Tolkien will make you work harder as you read (but it’s worth it!) and will help the reader develop some more skills; however, the “easier reads” can still fertilize a growing imagination and stretch the mind to think about all kids of wonderful ideas.


As a Brit, this pains me.
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 2:23 pm
amother wrote:
As a Brit, this pains me.


Hug
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Fox




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 2:56 pm
The real test will be whether the Harry Potter series resonates with readers a century from now. I can see it going either way. It's also tough to evaluate the Harry Potter books given that they are attached to such an enormous cultural juggernaut. The movies, the merchandising, the anticipation building up to the release of each book . . .

Each of my kids was briefly obsessed and then moved on. Some developed into readers; some didn't.

I do agree that it's important to read hard things, and it's a harder habit than might seem obvious. Those of us who read as relaxation want to, well, relax. So it's very easy to fall into the trap of consuming fast food literature. Also, it's not always so easy anymore to identify what's going to be "fast food" and what's more complex. I've read a ton of highly-acclaimed books by the latest new literary stars that, frankly, could have taken lessons from bodice-ripping pirate romances or the curiously-popular gay werewolf sub-genre.

When my kids were growing up and I was a younger, more ambitious mother, I read to them every night. I'd gotten a list of "classic" children's books, and I'd read a couple of chapters each night. Of course, they desperately wanted me to read the Harry Potter books to them, so I did. Things were going along just fine until Rowling started belching forth 800-page tomes. I was getting hoarse!

Fortunately, about that time, they started releasing the audio version of each new book, read by Jim Dale. The audio version was expensive and really a stretch for me at the time. However, I happily counted out my coins for the purchase! I proceeded to let Jim Dale do the heavy lifting each evening, and as an added bonus, my kids got an introduction to a range of British accents and dialects.

I didn't realize how much had "taken" until my DDs came home from BY one day after hearing a well-known rav from Gateshead. "A lot of girls couldn't understand him," one DD reported. "I don't know where he was from originally, but he had a really, really strong northern accent. I mean, almost like Yorkshire or something. Most people in America are used to the more southern accents or even a Midlands accent." Well, alrighty then.
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 3:18 pm
Here’s an example: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (speaking of Yorkshire accents!) was billed as “Harry Potter for grownups” when it first came out. That, of course, is nonsense. JSMN is, in a way, the exact opposite. There’s no wish fulfillment. There’s no “Mary Sue” element. It’s not relatable. Norrell is deliberately alienating and annoying. No one - not one reader, no matter how bookish or introverted - “identifies” with him. JSMN is all about the text itself.

So it’s really not about genre. People who think I have some sort of vendetta against fantasy are mistaken.

As for HP, as I have said numerous times, I enjoyed it myself (once). But when kids say, “I read a 700-page book!” in this context, it’s the equivalent of “I ate 4 lbs of chocolate.” You haven’t gotten any nutrition, and now everything else isn’t sweet enough.
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FranticFrummie




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 3:22 pm
I have seen friends who's kids were really uninterested in reading get suddenly motivated when they discovered HP. Kids who were way below grade level suddenly caught up to their peers in a matter of months. After that, they were excited to go on to bigger and better reads.

With DD, I read to her from the day she was born, and she grew up in a house full of books. I think that the key to reading HP, is teaching your child how to read critically. Teach story arcs, conflict and resolution, why or why not characters' chemistry works, and to point out all the inconsistencies. If there's one thing DD loves, it's to find someone's mistakes!

First instill a love of reading, any kind of reading. Then teach reading comprehension, which is a very different thing. After that, introduce the classics. If there's no comprehension, all the great literature in the world won't make a bit of difference, it will just be a jumble of wordy-words.

Her current favorite, that she's reread several times, is Every Soul a Star. It's a lovely book, complete with unrequited crushes and lessons in astronomy.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 3:42 pm
sequoia wrote:
Hug


Next you're gonna tell me that Vlad Dosty's not from Virginia.

(And that Washington "142nd fastest gun in the west" Irving wasn't Jewish.)
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Amarante




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 3:57 pm
I can't speak to Harry Potter specifically but I think it is really silly to be a book snob.

I was a voracious reader as a child (still am) and read more than my share of what I call disposable fiction - so what? It didn't hurt my reading comprehension skills and I also read age appropriate classics like Little Women or Wind In The Willows.

However, a lot of what are called classics really can't be appreciated until one becomes older. I avoided Dickens like the plague until I rediscovered him as an adult. And read War & Peace and Anna Karenina over a long summer after I moved to a new city. And if we want to be accurate, Dickens wrote for the masses as his works were serialized in popular magazines - he probably would have written for television if he had been around today.

Whatever gets children interested in reading - whether it is Harry Potter or other popular works written for children because the simple act of reading - whatever one is reading - is what provides a foundation for verbal and written skills. If you engage a child with a book he or she enjoys reading, it is far more likely that they will be willing to take a chance on other books versus cramming something that is theoretically "good" for the child to read and wind up having the kid take a visceral dislike to reading anything.

But I currently intersperse high and low brow books - a fun mystery and then something nominated for the Booker Prize and then maybe a well reviewed book and back to a thriller. The only thing I really can't stand are the really poorly formulaic books written by the people like Danielle Steel and romance novels :-).
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allthingsblue




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 4:02 pm
Amarante wrote:
I can't speak to Harry Potter specifically but I think it is really silly to be a book snob.

I was a voracious reader as a child (still am) and read more than my share of what I call disposable fiction - so what? It didn't hurt my reading comprehension skills and I also read age appropriate classics like Little Women or Wind In The Willows.

However, a lot of what are called classics really can't be appreciated until one becomes older. I avoided Dickens like the plague until I rediscovered him as an adult. And read War & Peace and Anna Karenina over a long summer after I moved to a new city. And if we want to be accurate, Dickens wrote for the masses as his works were serialized in popular magazines - he probably would have written for television if he had been around today.

Whatever gets children interested in reading - whether it is Harry Potter or other popular works written for children because the simple act of reading - whatever one is reading - is what provides a foundation for verbal and written skills. If you engage a child with a book he or she enjoys reading, it is far more likely that they will be willing to take a chance on other books versus cramming something that is theoretically "good" for the child to read and wind up having the kid take a visceral dislike to reading anything.

But I currently intersperse high and low brow books - a fun mystery and then something nominated for the Booker Prize and then maybe a well reviewed book and back to a thriller. The only thing I really can't stand are the really poorly formulaic books written by the people like Danielle Steel and romance novels :-).


I just read a book by Danielle Steel for the first time and could not understand how she was a bestselling author. She literally took Downton Abbey, created a star struck fan, mushed it all together predictable and un-grammatically, and called it a day. I had to finish it because I can't not finish a book (bad habit), but it was unpleasant.
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Amarante




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 4:09 pm
allthingsblue wrote:
I just read a book by Danielle Steel for the first time and could not understand how she was a bestselling author. She literally took Downton Abbey, created a star struck fan, mushed it all together predictable and un-grammatically, and called it a day. I had to finish it because I can't not finish a book (bad habit), but it was unpleasant.


I am with you - every once in a while I will pick up something and it is insulting to my intelligence - completely unengaging. I will generally just try to skip most of it to get to the resolution although many times this kind of poorly written trash has such obvious plot points that I can predict what is happening within the first chapter or two.

I differentiate it from fairly well written best sellers like those by Liane Moriarty or Jodi Picoult which aren't great literature but at least seem to be written by fairly intelligent women so they don't insult my intelligence and I don't feel like I need to scrub my brain after finishing Very Happy
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urban gypsy




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 4:38 pm
nylon wrote:
I read all kinds of things as a child. Pre Harry Potter. Some of them were TERRIBLE (do we need to go into all those YA serials that were huge in the late 80s/very early 90s)? I have pretty sophisticated tastes as an adult.


I agree with this. I think snobbery is horrible and I have a standing rule with my kids that they are allowed to read anything as long as it is age appropriate (I can't see myself banning a book based on content, but I readily tell them they can't read it until they are older) I pretty much subsisted on a diet of Babysitters Club, Saddle Club, Pen Pals Club and probably a bunch more teen series books with "Club" in the title and now I read everything like a maniac. And I did see my young kids getting pulled into reading with "graphic novels" like Dog Man and Diary of a Wimpy Kid and now they are much more comfortable with reading.

That said, Harry Potter just seems so trashy and overrated to me. It's not the content (heaven knows I love genre fiction) but the execution and the merchandising juggernaut behind it. Apparantly JK Rowling ripped off The Wizard of Earthsea series for much of the concept and I'd rather my kids just read that instead, the quality and messaging is far superior IMHO. I would gently steer my kids toward that instead but I would not be opposed if they wanted to read HP on their own.
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Ravenclaw




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 5:28 pm
allthingsblue wrote:
I just read a book by Danielle Steel for the first time and could not understand how she was a bestselling author. She literally took Downton Abbey, created a star struck fan, mushed it all together predictable and un-grammatically, and called it a day. I had to finish it because I can't not finish a book (bad habit), but it was unpleasant.


That’s how I felt about The Devil Wears Prada. It literally gave me a headache.
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PinkFridge




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 5:45 pm
urban gypsy wrote:
I agree with this. I think snobbery is horrible and I have a standing rule with my kids that they are allowed to read anything as long as it is age appropriate (I can't see myself banning a book based on content, but I readily tell them they can't read it until they are older) I pretty much subsisted on a diet of Babysitters Club, Saddle Club, Pen Pals Club and probably a bunch more teen series books with "Club" in the title and now I read everything like a maniac. And I did see my young kids getting pulled into reading with "graphic novels" like Dog Man and Diary of a Wimpy Kid and now they are much more comfortable with reading.
.


Some kids start with graphic novels and never move on.
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tigerwife




 
 
    
 

Post Wed, Jan 23 2019, 5:49 pm
amother wrote:
As a Brit, this pains me.


Lol! That’s a pretty embarrassing slip🙈 Thanks, I”ll edit.
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ora_43




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 24 2019, 11:26 am
There are some things I don't like about Harry Potter, but there are a lot of things that were very well done.

The characterization, for one. Harry Potter is the series that answers the question, "OK but what would a teenager really do if he discovered he was the Chosen One?" The characters talk and act like real people, with real flaws (I'm talking books, not movies, the movies are a different story).

And a lot of the things that I disliked about it (why do the Death Eaters have no motivation beyond "for the evulz"? why are awful things that the Team Good characters do so easily brushed aside?) are easily resolved by remembering that it's essentially a story told from Harry's perspective. He's a biased narrator.

There are also a lot of easter eggs in there for people who reread (eg the mirror structure of the series, or Harry and Ron's fake prophecies).

And while the main plotline is very simplistic, almost painfully so, there are some valuable lessons:

- Beautiful, charming, clever people with tragic backstories can be evil (Tom Riddle).

- Beautiful young women who like pretty clothes and boys can be intelligent and brave (Fleur, Lavender Brown).

- Dictators don't get power alone, they rise with the help of people who want to ignore what's happening (whats-his-face the first Minister of Magic), bureaucrats who go along because they like power (Umbridge), and journalists who don't care about the truth (Rita Skeeter, and wizard journalists in general).

- Heroes aren't infallible (Dumbledore, James, Sirius).

... and more but this post is long enough already.

Is it high literature that pushes kids to think hard? Not really. It's more of a nice story that seems easy on the surface, but sneaks in a lot of thinking when the reader least expects it. If high literature is like salad, Harry Potter is brownies made with zucchini.

I think people should strive to also read books more challenging than Harry Potter, but it's still definitely worth reading.
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urban gypsy




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 24 2019, 11:34 am
ora_43 wrote:
And a lot of the things that I disliked about it (why do the Death Eaters have no motivation beyond "for the evulz"? why are awful things that the Team Good characters do so easily brushed aside?)


Poorly drawn antagonists with weak motivations are my #1 literary pet peeve
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sequoia




 
 
    
 

Post Thu, Jan 24 2019, 11:37 am
Count Olaf, on the other hand, is a wonderful antagonist. It’s possible to create someone who does things for the evulz who is interesting and evocative.
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