I confess - I think the Harry Potter books stink!

[Athena]

I love children's literature. I usually keep up on the new books coming out, at least the ones that people tell me are good. I read 3.5 of the Harry Potter books. I thought they were all right at the time, but when I read half a book and then get bored with it, that tells me something.

Then I read the Philip Pullman books - The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass. Now THESE are what children's literature should be! Harry Potter always seems to be stumbling around, getting forward because of some mistake or another, sneaking past the teachers, coming up with plans that just about get him and his friends killed. The Pullman books, on the other hand, show kids really striving to be their best in bad circumstances. It shows them being smart & wise, and overcoming difficult odds. Throw in an absolutely mesmerizing story, and you've got some excellent literature.

Pullman's right up there with The Chronicles of Narnia and L'Engle's Swiftly Tilting Planet books, IMO. Harry Potter, although a nice story & an easy read, is not anywhere close. Anyone with me on this? If I had a kid who didn't read, and he/she picked up the Potter books, I'd be happy. However, I'd be ecstatic to see them reading stuff with real depth - like the ones mentioned above. I suspect, however, that I'm the only person in history who thinks the Potter books are bunk.

[Myrr21]

Well, I have a completely irrational and unfounded hatred of them (given that I have read none). Does that count?

[Wumpus]

Well, Pullman is children's literature for adults. (C'mon, how many kids are going to catch even a fraction of his whole faux Victorian/alternate history set-up?) Harry Potter is children's literature for children. Which is why Pullman spends page after page discussing theology, while Rowling spends page after page discussing kids' plans to sneak into the candy store.

[Athena]

Originally posted by Wumpus
Well, Pullman is children's literature for adults. (C'mon, how many kids are going to catch even a fraction of his whole faux Victorian/alternate history set-up?) Harry Potter is children's literature for children. Which is why Pullman spends page after page discussing theology, while Rowling spends page after page discussing kids' plans to sneak into the candy store.

Sorry, I don't buy it. I read the Narnia books when I was 8; I read Swiftly Tilting Planet shortly afterwards. Maybe YOUR kids can't get the "set-up", but I refuse to believe that none of the kids nowadays can appreciate Pullman's stuff.

"page after page discussing theology" - ? I must have missed that part of the book....

[Wumpus]

Trust me, the average 8 year old is not going to catch the irony of John Calvin being made Pope, or be able to figure out what "experimental theology" is, or what a "skraeling" is, etc. etc. As for the theology, just take a look at pages 29-30 of THE GOLDEN COMPASS for starters.

It's not surprising that typical kids are more interested in the world full of kindly giants and magic cars and speed-demon broomsticks and improbably named candies than in the world populated by Oblation Boards and alethiometers and Sub-Rectors and silver-nirate emulsions.

Which is not a knock at Pullman--he's a fine writer, if a bit preachy at times. (He's the anti-CS Lewis.) And I suspect he was aiming for the 'tweens, not the under-10s. Still, I suspect his most devout fans are adults.

[Primaflora]

I don't think they stink. I think the last one in particular could have benefited from a much tighter edit. However Pullman and Rowling are writing for different audiences. The books are not comparable in that way.

I think Pullman is astounding but I didn't read it to my 8 yo. He's not ready to deal with most of the themes or pick up on the subtle jokes. Diana Wynne Jones is more comparable to Rowling and IMO a much better writer. More original.

[Helena]

Originally posted by Primaflora
I don't think they stink. I think the last one in particular could have benefited from a much tighter edit.

Hear hear! I just read the fourth book out loud to my sister, and I noticed SO many places where she used the same word twice in a sentence, or words that just sound very weird in sequence... didn't bother me at all when I read myself the first time, but reading aloud they definitely jumped out at me.

I keep recommending Diana Wynne Jones's Chrestomanci books to Harry Potter fans I know. I don't think I've converted anyone yet.

[thermalribbon]

The wittiest guy I know, in describing a completely phony and self-centered person we both know, said that he "could read that guy like a Harry Potter book". I'm still laughing today.

[Badtz Maru]

I only read the first Harry Potter book, and found it pretty disappointing. I can see how they are appealing to a lot of kids, though, since the protagonist is a kid who has been treated unfairly by his guardians his whole life, then finds out he is special and goes off to a place where nearly everyone idolizes him, where he is naturally talented at everything he does. It's pure wish fulfillment, but I prefer stories where not everybody likes or even cares about the protagonist, where people succeed through hard work, not fate. Harry Potter is a non-character that kids can live vicariously through because he has no true character of his own.

For a good childrens book, try 'Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars'. THAT was a great book, the main character is bright and friendly but definitely not popular, partly because he is overweight, partly because he has uncool interests. The story gets really fantastic, but the characters are always believable, it reminds me of when I was in the early teens and I would imagine what I would do if me and my friends figured out how to unlock some kind of psychokinetic powers, or visit lost civilizations, or whatever.

[Chas.E]

I recently learned that the Harry Potter books won the Hugo Award. I was appalled and disgusted. This stuff ain't science fiction.

[aegypt]

I must confess that I have often skip through the pages that describe Quidditch matches in the HP books. I found real sports boring too, and the Quidditch rules aren't really that well thought out - Harry seems to be the only person on the team whose efforts really matter for the outcome of a game, with teamwork often mostly absent. Also, I doesn't strike me as a very good spectator sport - even Harry has problem seeing that little ball he's supposed to catch, so how interesting could it be to somebody in the audience?

I bet somebody on the board could come up with a more interesting game to play with broomsticks and magic balls.

Also, many of the supporting characters are one-dimensional and don't develop much from one book to another - Draco, Hagrid and most of Harry's friends come to mind.

[tavalla]

Originally posted by Chas.E
I recently learned that the Harry Potter books won the Hugo Award. I was appalled and disgusted. This stuff ain't science fiction.

Hugo Award rules do allow fantasy, IIRC; it's just that fantasy novels don't win all that often.

[Quasimodem]

I read the first HP, and it made me decidedly uncomfortable, because I read it to my grandaughter, and I kept thinking "Come on already!"
I know it's another genre' (in a way) but give me Tolkien every time.

My 2 cents

Quasi

[Athena]

Originally posted by Badtz Maru
I only read the first Harry Potter book, and found it pretty disappointing. I can see how they are appealing to a lot of kids, though, since the protagonist is a kid who has been treated unfairly by his guardians his whole life, then finds out he is special and goes off to a place where nearly everyone idolizes him, where he is naturally talented at everything he does. It's pure wish fulfillment, but I prefer stories where not everybody likes or even cares about the protagonist, where people succeed through hard work, not fate. Harry Potter is a non-character that kids can live vicariously through because he has no true character of his own.

For a good childrens book, try 'Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars'. THAT was a great book, the main character is bright and friendly but definitely not popular, partly because he is overweight, partly because he has uncool interests. The story gets really fantastic, but the characters are always believable, it reminds me of when I was in the early teens and I would imagine what I would do if me and my friends figured out how to unlock some kind of psychokinetic powers, or visit lost civilizations, or whatever.

Badtz, I think you capture here what bothered me about the books. The whole deal where he just stumbles around, and because he was born a great magician, he gets out of everything. I'm not one to think that all kid's books should be preachy, but it seems to me that a better story to be telling young kids is that even though we're all human and all have problems, if we at least strive to make ourselves better, it often works out. Harry Potter never does anything HARD!

In Pullman's books, the protaganist and the sub-characters are shown over and over again doing things that just wrench them, because it's the right thing to do. People die to save other people; people do things they don't want to do in order to strive for a higher good. In the Narnia books, Edmund does bad things, but he doesn't become a one dimensional BAD character, and his siblings don't give up on him. In HP, he sneaks off and does stuff that he wants to do, and it all turns out GREAT! Everyone's one dimensional - bad or good.

I'll check out that book you mentioned, as well as the Diana Wynne Jones books others have mentioned.

[Johnny Angel]

I read the Harry Potter books, and I think they're well worth the paper they're printed on. Rowling's brand of whimsical irreality is compelling, and the stories are delightful. But they don't hold up well to second thoughts, I've noticed. They're in a world in which everything from school books to candy are insanely dangerous, but they ignore this fact unless they need to create dramatic tension ("Oh my god, Harry ate the chocolates that make the green fire shoot out of his ass, instead of the red fire. How incredibly irresponsible!"). Quiddich is not only insanely dangerous, it's clearly designed so that only one player on each team actually counts. It's never clear why Harry has to live with the Dursleys for the summer, except to give something to compare Hogwarts to. The enormous trouble that the wizards go through to hide their existence doesn't make sense. Dudley is lampooned as an insatiable fatso, even though a great deal of what Harry and his friends do is to stuff their faces from the bottomless troughs at Hogwarts.

These are books to read and enjoy, not books to think about.

[Gartog]

In the last book it was explained that while Harry is with his relations (The Dursleys) his is protected from Voldemort.

[Fiver]

The books have their faults, but I think their charm is undeniable. If the characters leave something to be desired, the plots are byzantine but still hold together: Rowling doesn't throw anything away, and never forgets a detail from hundreds of pages earlier that comes back to be relevant (I say this having read just the first two).

And Rowling is great with the funny little details, like the animated magic photographs. A photo is taken of Harry next to a pompous prima donna wizard, and when Harry sees the print later, his image is trying to stay out-of-frame while the image of the wizard is trying to pull him back into it. How can anyone not be amused by stuff like that?

[DAVEW0071]

These are all good arguments, pro and con, and I find myself agreeing with many of them on both sides.

I enjoy the books because they can be enjoyed by my 16-year-old (who reads everything from Jane Austen, Shakespeare, and Lloyd Alexander to Calvin and Hobbes and Captain Underpants) as well as my 7-year-old (who reads Calvin and Hobbes and Captain Underpants). The characters and situations are engaging, and the alternate reality of the wizarding world holds together, for the most part, as Rowling has drawn it. Yes, there may be gaps and "errors" but just talk to any Star Wars wonk, and you'll find the same thing. Matter of fact, people have ripped Shakespeare for hundreds of years for his "gaps" and "errors."

The most important virtue of these books, as was alluded to in the OP, is that they have made readers out of kids who may not have had much interest in reading prior to this. If all they do is serve as stepping-stones to other literature for these kids, then more power to them.

[cmkeller]

Weigh me in on the pro-Harry side.

Yes, you can find fault with the characters and with various plot points. Yes, Harry gets quite a bit of latitude for being an orphan targeted by Voldemort and for having that magic lightning scar. But when it comes down to it, those books, once opened, are darned hard to put down.

And I don't find it so unusual that in Quiddich there's one player on the team who can make all the difference in a game. In hockey or soccer, a good goalie can win games by himself. In baseball, a batter is totally alone when he goes to the plate, and in football, the offensive line is nothing but extra armor for the quarterback (admittedly there are receivers in the field as well). So it's quite common for team sports to be centered around a single one of the players.

[aegypt]

Originally posted by cmkeller
And I don't find it so unusual that in Quiddich there's one player on the team who can make all the difference in a game. In hockey or soccer, a good goalie can win games by himself.

Let me elaborate.

In Quidditch, the team whose seeker catches the golden snitch gets 150 points. The game then ends. Ordinary goals (scored with the quaffle by the chasers) score 10 points each.

What would hockey be like if there was one guy on each team who go the team 15 points and ended the game when he scored? Add to this the fact that he and his equivalent on the other team would be using their own puck, basically playing their own little game, completely separate from the game the other teammembers play.

What you get is a game that's pretty much governed by pure chance, and that could take anywhere between 5 seconds and a couple of months (the longest known Quidditch game referred to in the books took three months). Pretty boring if you ask me.

[cmkeller]

I'm aware of the scoring issues you mentioned.

However, catching the Golden Snitch is very much an issue of strategy. I recall in one book, Harry was ordered to not catch it and to not let it be caught until his teammates had scored fifty or sixty more points with the quaffle, because they needed those additional points in order to win the season championship...not just the game.

In addition, don't forget the other balls, whose purpose is to damage the players. The defenders are important here...the team can't let their "money player" get taken out of the game by those things.

The efforts of the other players do indeed matter in a Quiddich game, and winning each specific game is not necessarily the primary goal...the season championship, which goes to the team with the most points is (in theory, I imagine a team could win the championship without winning a single game). Just because the efforts of one gets points to a disproportionate degree doesn't mean that teamwork and team strategy isn't important, or that the other team members have no effect.

I will admit, though, that a months-long match doesn't sound to me like much fun to watch.

Chaim Mattis Keller

[Flutterby]

I agree with points on both sides.. the books are great for getting kids to read but they're brain candy not thinking books. I own the first and fourth book and the two 'school books' (Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastical Creatures) and I haven't read any of the books since the first time I read them. I did enjoy them but trying to read them again I start to decide.. well I would rather read other books than these again.

As to the Philip Pullman books.. I've read those as well. I agree that they were amazing.. but I'm 18 and even now I still didn't grasp some of the stuff. (I am pretty well read.. or try to be.) I don't see how many children are going to be able to read those. I did read stuff such as A Swiftly Tilting Planet and Chronicles of Narnia as a child.. but Pullman's books I find are much, much more complex. Also something about his writing style bugs me. I can't really put my finger on it but I was always thinking this is just strange. I couldn't put them down though till I finished reading because the plot and story itself was amazing, but I won't read them again either.

There are always going to be exceptions to who reads what. I know my brother will never read Harry Potter. That's how I got the first book it was given to him but he took one look at it and said nu-uh. I also know he would never look at Lewis or Pullman. If a kid wants to read Pullman.. more power to them but Rowling I think has started to open the eyes of kids to reading. Just by doing that I feel she has done something great, even if the books aren't the best.

[Fenris]

Originally posted by Chas.E
I recently learned that the Harry Potter books won the Hugo Award. I was appalled and disgusted. This stuff ain't science fiction.

As I've mentioned before, the criteria for the Hugo specifically and explicitly allows science fiction, fantasy and speculative fiction.

Be appalled and disgusted if you don't like the book, but it was a perfectly legitimate vote and it's not the first work of fantasy to win a Hugo. Depending on your worldview, it's not even the first fantasy novel to win one (A Case of Conscience beat it by like 40 years)

Fenris

[Phlosphr]

I can't beleive what I am reading in some of these posts. Unless you are ten then why they hell would anyone be knocking Harry Potter.

Harry Potter inspires creativity, imagination, and visualization in a lot of children. If you are an adult and you don't like Harry Potter, so what, you have a developed sense of imagination (or maybe not as the case may be)therefore you probably wouldn't like it.

But for kids, I know most kids of a certain age love Harry Potter. I have been in the book business for years. And I have seen books inspire, scare, bewilder, and entrance children. Please don't knock a book that 'many' children love, if you are an adult, you shouldn't knock anything that inspires creativity and imagination in children. And the reason you probably didn't like it is because it is not geared for an adult. If you are an adult, read something that inspires you and not something that inspires a ten year old.