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Seventh Harry Potter Book Named
Croakyvoice writes "JK Rowling has today given fans of the Harry Potter books the name of Book 7 of the very popular series via a Christmas present on her site, to get to the name you need to follow a complicated procedure but thankfully the name of the book has been revealed as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."
I'm so obsessed with Harry Potter. This was the best Christmas present she could give out... short of the book itself.
What part of the "stuff that matters", don't you understand?
... I was hoping it would be called "Harry Potter and the Back Alley Abortion."
:: goes and pre orders five copies-- one for self, one for wife, one for sister, one for children, one for mother ::
Seriously, why do people keep on reading this stuff?
Our friendly Webster dictionary says: (and I quote) "Etymology: Middle English halowen, from Old English hAlgian, from hAlig holy -- more at HOLY 1 : to make holy or set apart for holy use 2 : to respect greatly : VENERATE synonym see DEVOTE" Interesting -- unless there's something that I'm missing, from earlier books in the series? Thoughts?
Hallowed are the Ori.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
It was originally called "Harry Potter Laughes All The Way To The Bank". But the publisher convinced her to change the title.
It's actually: "Harry Potter: the plot is shallow".
Circumcision is child abuse.
Are you implying that because an English writer will dominate the Best Seller list for a while?
Or perhaps you are concerned about millions of kids who have discovered books can be entertaining thanks to Rowlings books?
Or maybe you're just point out how stupid you are in that you didn't realize one of the biggest selling modern writers is neither American nor are her novels set in America, or that literature and popular books are completely independant?
Harry Potter is British. What does it have to do with American literature?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Seriously, a book has been titled? So what?
I can't believe this is on the Beeb and Slashdot's front pages.
OMG! Wau!
Would be Hirsute Ceramist and the Holy Lambda for those of us who like Lord Voldemort's Schemes.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
I was so hoping for Harry Potter and the Closed Casket Funerals. Guess I should have known that that wasn't going to happen.
Amen. I teach 5th grade and it is astonishing to see how engrossed nearly all the students are with the Harry Potter franchise. It's not the movies that draw them in either, that's just icing on the cake. I ask them about a new Potter film and they will tell me, "It's not as good as tht Book." or "This was different in the Book." Older children and young adults love these stories, and why not. A Fantasy world set in the modern era, with young teens as the protagonists who become wrapped up in a mystery at a fantastic magical castle while casting magical spells, defeating monsters and overcoming issues teens their age face (puberty, dating, school/studies). Who has the right to say to readers, "This is crap, read something better," especially to budding readers who are already at an age when young boys begin dropping off from reading as it becomes "uncool." Maybe Harry Potter isn't listed on "great literature" lists, who cares. Kids are reading, and that is reallly the most important part. They are challenging themselves to read a significant novel of considerable depth and length for people their age. If they enjoy these stories, you can turn them on to other works they might enjoy to push their boundaries and reading capabilities. Enough witht he Harry Potter bashing, if you don't like them, don't read them.
I was hoping it was going to be "Harry Potter and the Balance of Earth" and that it would come bundled with a copy
of "An Inconvenient Truth" and some moon sapphires...
"The Hallows could refer to the Four Hallows of Arthurian legend. They are intimately connected to the Grail and ultimately probably go back to the Four Treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan of Irish myth.
8 09&st=0
The Four Hallows are:
The Cup or Chalice
The Baton or Wand
The Sword or Dagger
The Coin, Disc or Pentacle
I think we were right all along in connecting the horcruxes to the four elements. These hallows are associated with the elements, and match up quite nicely to the remaining horcruxes:
Cup (HH)
Baton or Wand (RR)
Sword or Dagger (GG)
Pentacle (SS locket)
Just my two knuts!"
Read here: http://www.leakylounge.com/index.php?showtopic=36
They're also, by the way, great books for brushing up on a foreign language: they're translated into just about everything and the way each book is successively harder gives you a chance to start slow and be reading at a young adult level by the end.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
In the mirror, you'll see a hallway. Click on the farthest doorknob and look for the Christmas tree. Then click on the center of the door next to the mirror and a wreath appears. Then click on the top of the mirror and you'll see a garland.
Look for a cobweb next to the door. Click on it, and it will disappear. Now, look at the chimes in the window. Click on the second chime to the right, and hold it down. The chime will turn into the key, which opens the door. Click on the wrapped gift behind the door, then click on it again and figure out the title yourself by playing a game of hangman.
No, It's going to be named " Harry Potter and the Franchise of Sequels."
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
"This is crap, read something better,"
I don't think anyone's saying that, especially not to kids. It's the hordes of adults who go on about it being some quantum leap in the evolution of literature, who are somewhat bemusing (or annoying, depending on your perspective).
sic transit gloria mundi
I wouldn't call it a quantum leap, but I do agree with C. S. Lewis who said (I'm paraphrasing here, can't find the exact quote), if a book is worth reading when you're five, it's worth reading when you're fifty.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
Mod me down if you must but damn, the one time I don't have mod points to use and like the majority of comments are just flamebait and trolling. Quite a few nerds are into Harry Potter, let's not forget nerds extend into the fantasy genre, and there has been plenty of news on such things as Lord of the Rings or Warhammer on /. in the past...So why the hate for HP? If you dislike the novels for their story and such, thats your opinion you are entitled too but damn, don't dis on Neil for putting up a story many of us are interested in.
Aw Frell this
I am now severing my connection to the Internet. I can no longer trust even the most unlikely sources for Harry Potter spoilers. Fucking Richard Stallman ruined it for me last time. He sure got an earful from me, though.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
My biggest issue with Harry Potter series is that it depicts the protagonist as one who has no genius, is not hard-working by any standards, has bigotry - in short - an absolutely average person.
The protagonist then goes and defeats a much more able antagonist (whose biggest fault is bigotry, by the way) with nothing more than - love of his mother protecting him.
My biggest issue with such a story - that too tailored for young children - is that the protagonist is not anywhere close to the perfect role model for children - and they are impressionable at that age. I am not asking for the protagonist to be a genius - I am just saying there should be some real stand-out feature in the protagonist - in a children's book. I couldn't find it in this book.
When I read the book, it felt as if the political correctness of the current times have enveloped the fantasy world too.
YMMV.
rajmohan_h@yahoo.com
Man, that naming formula is even more boring than Star Wars' "Episode NUMBER: VERB of the NOUN".
sic transit gloria mundi
I don't like it because of one point you raised (but I think you didn't emphasize enough)- the protagonist is merely average. And yet he manages to overcome through sheer luck of the draw and general bumblingness someone who is by no means average and has an advantage over him in just about every way possible, other than being bigoted.
Reminds me of that quote from Spacebattles:
"Evil will always win... because good is STUPID!"
It just annoys the hell out of me that the bigots always lose because they're bigoted. Sure they're bigots, but I really don't care. The fact that Harry's incompetent bugs the hell out of me a lot more.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
If he were a superman, that would send the wrong message too: "Oh, well, he can do that because he's really clever and powerful." He's not lazy, but he's not particularly studious either. He actually has to work much harder than Hermione to learn the same things (most of the time, though, he's up to his ass in schoolwork and other problems as well.) On the other hand, he's no slouch--he still manages to be near the head of his class. And he pays dearly for all of his flaws--he makes so many mistakes in Order of the Phoenix that he almost gets everyone killed, and in the end, Sirius Black pays for it with his life.
What he does have is loyalty, fairness, kindness, generosity, and courage. In every situation, that's what carries him through. In standard fantasy parlance, he'd be a Paladin. The books are about the power of love vs. the power of hatred (ironic that Christians try to ban these books--they just don't get much of anything, do they?) His mother's protection is just a metaphor for that--but his mother's protection, and Dumbledore's, is gone now. In the final book he will have to grow up and face Voldemort alone. He's going to have to work like a trojan to be able to pull it off. But Rowling has set it up so that he's going to be tested most in the very qualities that have carried him so far. All is not what it seems. If Harry behaves like a jerk in the final book, he will lose a great deal, even if he wins the final battle.
Despite your troll, you've almost got it right. The final chapter of the final book will actually be entitled "The Boy Who Lived," just like the first chapter of the first book.
Note how clever that turn of phrase is: you can look at the table of contents and see that chapter title, but you won't know until you read the book whether it means 1) the boy who used to live, or 2) the boy who fought Voldemort (again) and lived.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
Maybe it's because the character has flaws that millions of people identify with him?
If you look at Bilbo, Frodo (as you pointed out), or, actually, most contemporary (low- or high-brow) fantasy, you're going to find bumbling characters who make mistakes and only pull through because of Deus Ex Machina, luck of the draw, or some moral accomplishment.
I think it's the fact that we all recognize our own faults and inner issues, and can see them portrayed in these characters, that makes us, as readers, identify with the heroes of these stories.
We fuck up. We make mistakes. Sometimes, we're jerks to our friends, we don't put enough time into our relationships, and we make the wrong moral decisions.
Superman doesn't have those problems.
Harry Potter has those problems.
Remember the success of Spider-Man? From the Wikipedia article: The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring a hero who himself was an adolescent, to whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate.
One of the best comments ever was in a long thread about the technicalities of RAID hardware. Someone wrote four long paragraphs, and halfway through the second, tacked on to the end of one sentence "and besides, Hermione dies in the last book anyways." *
The outrage was tremendous because, before you even realized you were reading a spoiler, you'd finished and comprehended it. Sweetest troll ever.
* No one knows who dies in the last book, if someone does. At the time, Rowling explicitly said she hadn't decided who. It wasn't a real spoiler, and isn't now. Don't freak out.
Anyone who loves or hates any language, platform, or manufacturer, doesn't know what they're talking about.
#111338
<JonJonB> Purely in the interests of science, I have replaced the word "wand" with "wang" in the first Harry Potter Book
<JonJonB> Let's see the results...
<JonJonB> "Why aren't you supposed to do magic?" asked Harry.
<JonJonB> "Oh, well -- I was at Hogwarts meself but I -- er -- got expelled, ter tell yeh the truth. In me third year. They snapped me wang in half an' everything
<JonJonB> A magic wang... this was what Harry had been really looking forward to.
<JonJonB> "Yes, yes. I thought I'd be seeing you soon. Harry Potter." It wasn't a question. "You have your mother's eyes. It seems only yesterday she was in here herself, buying her first wang. Ten and a quarter inches long, swishy, made of willow. Nice wang for charm work."
<JonJonB> "Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wang. Eleven inches. "
<JonJonB> Harry took the wang. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wang above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light on to the walls
<JonJonB> "Oh, move over," Hermione snarled. She grabbed Harry's wang, tapped the lock, and whispered, 'Alohomora!"
<JonJonB> The troll couldn't feel Harry hanging there, but even a troll will notice if you stick a long bit of wood up its nose, and Harry's wang had still been in his hand when he'd jumped - it had gone straight up one of the troll's nostrils.
<JonJonB> He bent down and pulled his wang out of the troll's nose. It was covered in what looked like lumpy gray glue.
<JonJonB> He ran onto the field as you fell, waved his wang, and you sort of slowed down before you hit the ground. Then he whirled his wang at the dementors. Shot silver stuff at them.
<JonJonB> Ok
<JonJonB> I have found, definitive proof
<JonJonB> that J.K Rowling is a dirty DIRTY woman, making a fool of us all
<JonJonB> "Yes," Harry said, gripping his wang very tightly, and moving into the middle of the deserted classroom. He tried to keep his mind on flying, but something else kept intruding.... Any second now, he might hear his mother again... but he shouldn't think that, or he would hear her again, and he didn't want to... or did he?
<melusine > O_______O
<JonJonB> Something silver-white, something enormous, erupted from the end of his wang
<JonJonJonB> Then, with a sigh, he raised his wang and prodded the silvery substance with its tip.
<JonJonJonB> 'Get - off - me!' Harry gasped. For a few seconds they struggled, Harry pulling at his uncles sausage-like fingers with his left hand, his right maintaining a firm grip on his raised wang.
As the series is sometimes referred to by less successful working writers.
But at least Rowling writes her own books. Tom Clancy seems to have given up writing in favor of licensing his name. Latest "Splinter Cell" book: "Tom Clancy" in big letters at top of front cover. "Written by David Michaels" in small type in grey letters on black background at bottom.
If I remember correctly Harry Potter was always going to be seven books.
And Guid^H^H^H^H Voldemort shot first.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Actually it's from Spaceballs and the quote is: "... now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb!"
And pertaining to your arguement, I totally agree that he (Harry Potter) gets through things out of sheer dumb luck, but the fact that he is average gives him a greater appeal to the average kids who can relate to him rather than the typical child prodigy hero who can zap enemies with a cunning flick of his wrist and get out of trouble in the wink of an eye. That wouldn't even work with the storyline presented because most of what happens is DUE TO his inability to get out of certain situations such as sneaking around the school and whatnot. He is also not entirely average because he has proved himself in situations of greater importance like saving a friend or something. A very admirable feat you'd want in a protagonist if you ask me.
Of course you may want a more interesting protagonist like Raislin from the Dragonlance novels. If so, go read them and let these kids read what they like.
Joanne K. does it again: she announces the death of two main characters. She did this before 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' and killed Sirius Black in a pretty inconvincing way.
Who will die this time? My guess: Dudley eats himself to death and owls hunt Uncle Vernon into the sea...
Harry is not incompetent -- he is described many times as an extremely talented young wizard. Rowling has clearly put a lot of thought into the precise nature of this talent, and it's a subtle characterization. There is an element of raw power -- recall when Harry and Voldemort's wands are locked together, Harry is able to push back with more than equal force. Harry thinks very quickly under extreme pressure, and has an uncanny ability to react instantly and correctly -- recall, for instance, when he stabs Voldemort's diary with the basilisks fang...
Of course, talent in wizardry is not something that a muggle could readily comprehend :-)
They're also, by the way, great books for brushing up on a foreign language
Yes. That's why I buy the British editions and not those translated into my native American. I had no idea that they called sorcerers "philosophers" in the UK!
And the brethren went away edified.
Harry is the anti-geek: he isn't smart, isn't the best in school, doesn't give a rat's ass about magic, etc. The only thing he is good at is flying his stick; Harry is a JOCK! People love him, help him cheat or give him secret help so that he always looks good in public and the people with real talent around him are diminished. His only claim to fame is his heritage.
Snape kills Dumbledore!
Oh wait...
What gets me is that he's essentially a jock, but we have trouble recognizing it because he hasn't yet adopted jockish bravado nor gotten a pair of magic contact lenses. Think about it. He's:
Seriously, a trip to Aberzombie and Fitchicus and a six pack of Cooricon's Light is all he needs to become a typical beer-swilling young jock.
_Harry Potter and the Dark, Moist Cave_.
Ah, but we don't. The problem in translation stems I think from the absence of the relevant period of history on the Western side of the Atlantic. The philosophers' stone was a mythical substance derived from alchemical pursuits with properties of confering eternal life and turning base metal into gold. The alchemists were philosophers and not sorcerers since, after all, even 500 years ago no-one admitted to believing in magic.
Nut... but... he can't be a jock! He wears glasses!
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
The writer behind the books on that site took it to court and lost. Apparently the court said that there was no plagiarism but also that she (Stouffler) had lied and doctored evidence. Seems like the last name Potter only occurs in later reprints and not in the original ones... Which is pretty damning proof that she was trying to cash in but didn't trust her proof that much. She applead to a higher court but verdict was upheld. My highly personal opinion: Stouffler is a golddigger and you took the bait hook, line and sinker. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Stouffer
I think you're missing the point - the commendable thing about Harry Potter is simply that it isn't a 'TV show' - kids are reading and for many, HP is their introduction to the diverse world of literature.
And I would cast another light on the poor role model complaint - people who make good role models are not perfect. If that was a requirement, then no one on the entire face of the planet would qualify. The fact that Harry Potter is not portrayed in an idealistic/impossible manner - with all his faults and failings laid out in front of us - makes the story more interesting and accessible.
I can't really think of any character from any work of serious fiction (fantasy, sci fi or otherwise) who doesn't have faults. I would probably go as far as to say that a recurring theme in fiction is the consequence and sometimes resolution of the protaganists failings.
Psst! Hey, kid, c'mon, try it. All your friends are doing it. It don't hurt no one. Here, just read a couple of pages...
/daughter is 6
While not a fan of Harry Potter (is derivative of other children's books and treats magic the way Star Treck handles science), they have gotten my daughter away from basic picture books and started her reading actual novels. I can't complain about that. Now if only, her reading skills were a little more advanced so that I didn't have to jump in and help her figure out new words ever two minutes. What's wrong with our schools? Don't they teach reading in Kindergarten?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Not everyone only reads C++ GUI interfaces guides.
Why not?
They're there affecting their effect.
Are you implying that HP & Lewis's books fail to appeal to adults? I know an awful lot of adults (not to mention publisher's marketing departments, bookstore staff, librarians, and kids whose parents insist on reading the books first) who would disagree with you there.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
Amen to that.
A couple of years ago, I did a little work around the periphery of the publishing industry. At no point was I even close to anybody who was close to anybody who was involved with any of the Harry Potter books. However, a few of the things that were common knowledge then seem particularly relevant now.
What J.K. Rowling is increasingly suffering from is Celebrity Author Syndrome. This, simply put, is a state in which no editor has both the guts and the backing from above to stand up to the author in question and insist upon necessary changes. In some cases, this goes hand in hand with the author being a self-important prick, but that's absolutely *not* an essential pre-requisite (and I have absolutely *no* idea what JKR is like to work with).
Let me explain...
The vast majority of manuscripts that are submitted to publishers by first-time authors are seriously long. They contain repetition of scenes, subplots that are never developed, page after page of background exposition on characters and vast amounts of unnecessary description and digression. Reading the average freshly-submitted manuscript is a pretty depressing alternative; by the time you've waded through all the padding, you can hardly remember anything about the plot and the characters. Now, of course, most manuscripts submitted to publishers go straight in the bin. Occasionally, however, one will be considered interesting enough to pick up. What happens in this case (with some variation across the industry, but the model remains more or less the same) is that some money might change hands and the publisher might indicate to the author that they could conceivably be convinced to publish the book, provided the author work with a designated editor to strip the work down to something fit for public consumption.
This process is often pretty gruelling for the first-time author. They've suddenly got an editor, who they likely see as a pen-pushing bureaucrat and spawn of the devil, demanding that they cut out whole chunks of words that the author has sweated blood over. Emotionally, this is surprisingly difficult. However, most first-time authors who have made it this far have a strong incentive to comply with changes demanded by their editor and will comply. After all, the editor's say-so can kill the book. The publisher looses relatively little from killing the project, while for the author, this could mean months or years of work going to waste. Ultimately, it is very rare that a book is not improved beyond recognition by this process.
However, this dynamic changes massively with a celebrity author (as in, a celebrity who is famous for writing, not a celebrity who has decided to write a book). The publisher suddenly has a lot more to loose if the relationship goes sour. Whatever contractual obligations the author might be under, they know that they'll always have a market for their words elsewhere in the future. If the author is a prick, they can therefore change editors at will and refuse to make changes as they see fit.
However, even if the author is the nicest, most compliant person in the world, the editor is still going to be under a lot of stress. They know, and the people who pay them know, that this author has been lucrative in the past. The editor knows that his future job security almost certainly depends to a large degree on him managing this author right. There is therefore an enormous temptation to just sit back and assume that the author knows best (even though the wisest authors might realise themselves that this isn't the case).
We saw the results of this with the 5th and 6th Harry Potter books (and to a lesser extent, the 4th). The 5th book in particular had a stupidly high number of redundant scenes, most of which could have been excised at will. The bizarre, only-half-realised political commentary surrounding Dolores Umbridge ended up eating a significant chunk of the book without adding anything significant to it. The character could (and in an earlier book, would) have been ha
I'm not familiar with this comparison. The only trojan I know works very well until you pull it off!
Far be it from me to tell people what they should like or dislike. But it seems to me that many of the most strident critics of the Harry Potter books are those who insist on measuring them by inappropriate paradigms, in this case the canons of dramatic criticism. Literature as a whole needn't abide by rules that are instrumental to mimesis (represenation), important as they may be to the medium of drama.
In learning to critique, we oughtn't lose the art of listening.
I have engaged many people in debates over the merits (or lack thereof) of the Harry Potter books. More often than not they are not simply left cold, as Fred_A seems to be. They are positively offended and outraged by them. I think this ponits the way to some of the chief merits of the books, a point I'll return to in a second. But first I should point out that literary merit is an atomic thing that can be measured on a simple scale. There are many kinds of merit a story may have, such as richness of detail, beauty of language, cleverness in plotting, humor, psychological insight. The Potter books are remarkably rich in some dimensions, and simplistic in others.
When it comes to language, for example, Rowling is clever, but is no J.R.R. Tolkien. The great pleasure of rereadign Lord of the Rings for the 99th time is the sheer beauty of the writing. For example, look up the passage where Frodo takes a last walk around Bag End, before leaving it to his despised cousins the Sackville-Bagginses. It is a masterpiece of writing; evocative and far more poetic (as is often the case with Tolkien) than the book's attempts at verse.
It is also true that the Harry Potter books are by no means masterpieces of plotting, to put it mildly. Stories of this sort seldom are. I agree completely with Fred_A's condemnation of the books... but only if we are talking about the movies. Here the books mimetic weaknesses are on full display, and few if any of their diagetic (narrative) strengths.
The books' greatest strengths are humor and psychological insight. And its important to note that the latter is not necessarily displayed according to the methods of drama, which demand that such insights be shown by the action of plot events on the characters. Narrative arts have no such fundamental constraint. Which brings us to why Harry Potter is so roundly hated by the cultural canon crowd.
Real life is not dramatic. Unlike a play or movie, most acts are not prompted by motivation, but by habit. People in power, even good people, exercise their power for the most part mindlessly. Nobody knows this better than children, who have no power of their own and must live in accordance with rules set by others. Many of those rules are set for the childrens' benefit; some for the convenience of their betters; others are there just because they've always been there.
The importance of this truth to the Potter books hit me when I was reading one of the many passages in which Professor MacGonagle, a good and benevolent adult character, fails to listen and uses her authority in an unreasoning way. In various ways we are told that this character is admirable, intelligent and good; but these qualities are never shown in her actions towards Harry. In a drama this would be completely wrong. This apparent inconsistency had always bothered me, but then it struck me that this quite true to life. As a parent, I don't always take time to make the right decision, and often make the wrong decision because it is easier. On reflection, it seems right that all the adults Harry encounters regularly exercise their power unreasonably, even the ones who have his best interests at heart. It is equally necessary that Harry defy them, even though sometimes this turns out to be a terrible mistake.
In other words, the message of the Harry Potter books is subversive.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Actually, most Christians DO get this. It's just the few idiot ones that don't. Christianity is like any other social group on the planet. It's made up of humans, some of which are morons. Unfortunately, Christian morons seem to get more press than those of other stripes.
I realize that there are many here on Slashdot that, for one reason or another, have thier hate on for Christians. I'm not going to address that bigotry right now. But for those that don't hate Christians, but really do think they all want to ban Harry Potter, I recommend going here and reading:
http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/12/21/laur
Not all Christians want to ban Harry Potter. Most don't, and those that do are a small moronic minority.
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Amen again. I have been getting my nieces and nephews books for Christmas and birthday gifts since they were born. (I also get them a cool toy, I'm not a complete jerk. Although they ONLY remember that I get them "stupid" books, not which books, not even that they got toys too... but I digress) I would get them "classic" books like RL Stevenson, Tolkein, Dumas, Baum, L.Ingles-Wilder, Lewis Caroll, etc. I would even try to read to them at appropriate age levels, but if it wasn't TV or video games, they are not interested. Then came the Harry Potter books, and they actually _enjoyed_ reading. Who would have thought? Now they _ask_ for specific titles (mostly dragon stuff right now), if they haven't already gotten those book from the library, and it pleases me. But _I_ didn't get them reading, Ms. Rowling did.
More music, fewer hits
Those poor Americans have to get their literature from somewhere.
That's why we grew Christopher Paolini [Eragon] in vat in a secret laboratory.
My Heart Is A Flower
If you go to jkrowling.com, click on the eraser and you will be taken to a room you'll see a window, a door and a mirror. In the mirror, you'll see a hallway. Click on the farthest doorknob and look for the Christmas tree. They click on the center of the door next to the mirror and a wreath appears. Then click on the top of the mirror and you'll see a garland. Look for a cobweb next to the door. Click on it, and it will disappear. Now, look at the chimes in the window. Click on the second chime to the right, and hold it down. The chime will turn into the key, which opens the door. Click on the wrapped gift behind the door, then click on it again and figure out the title yourself by playing a game of hangman.
from hecklerspray.com
Cause J.K Rowling hasn't written "Harry Potter and the Blue Screen of Death"
You've nailed it here--magic is basically an alternate technology base for a parallel society. Rowling does a pretty good job defining the rules and then exploring their implications. For one thing physical harm is not nearly as dangerous as magical harm. One of the characters is discovered to be a wizard when he falls out a second story window as a baby and simply bounces like a rubber ball. People are constantly breaking arms, having all their bones magicked out of their body, getting cut and bitten and burned--and all getting healed by magic. But no trauma to the psyche/soul is healable by magic (including death). The base concept seems to be making real the perceived distinction between body and mind.
Consider our technologies--we live in houses with electrical voltages that can kill us, natural gas lines, various powerful poisons, etc. We drive multi-ton vehicles down the road at 80 MPH. There's actually a fair amount of humor in the books based around technology differences--like the horror the main characters feel toward our medical practices ("They actually stitch people up with needle and thread? How barbaric!" - paraphrase) As we grow up we learn to manage and operate around our societal dangers. In the Harry Potter books the children are doing the same thing--the physical dangers are greatly exaggerated though, because the technology to mitigate/recover from them is so much better (magic). Thus it helps tell the story that all children know well--learning that things that seem scary at first are managable as you learn more and get older. When you're three, a stove is scary dangerous thing. When you're 13, you're expected to heat your own soup.
If you're going to read the series, there's one more thing to keep in mind--they are written to the age of Harry in the book. So the first several books are shorter, simpler, and more rah-rah. But as Harry ages into a teenager, the books get longer, more morally complex, and darker. You have to set your expectations accordingly.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
One thing I find ironic is that the Zeeland, Michigan Public Schools took Harry Potter off the shelves. The Zeeland Christian Schools (run by a relatively conservative denomination of which I'm member) kept them on the shelves.
I know this because my mom was a teacher in the Zeeland Christian Schools and is currently a media specialist (aka librarian) for them. She likes the books quite a lot herself. She had nothing to to do with the fact that they're still on the shelves though.
I'd say that some Christians try to ban them, but far from all. In fact, I'd say that quite a lot of them like the books.