Harry Potter and the Reading Phenomenon

BoSacks Speaks Out: As most of you know I track reading habits. I track newspapers, magazines, web sites and I also track trends. That would be reading trends. Most of the data viewed on the surface is not encouraging. But if you dig deep there is a lot going on that at first glance just doesn't meet the eye. Most stats show that reading and children is at an all time low. How then can you explain the Harry Potter experience? I think it is remarkable and joyous.

For the record last Friday night, I was on line at mid-night to get the last Harry Potter book. There were at least 1,200 people in a very small town in the Berkshire Mountains. Of those 1,200 my guesstimate was 800 kids under 16.

My thanks to J. K. Rowling for saving at least two perhaps three generations of real readers.

Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business.
Tom Robbins (1936 - )




Harry Potter and the Reading PhenomenonBY ANGIE GREEN

http://www.dailypress.com/news/local/dp-90035sy0jul21,0,6429227.story?coll=dp-news-local-final



A survey says 51 percent of children didn't read for fun before the wizard's series.

As you read this newspaper, hundreds - maybe thousands - of Hampton Roads Harry Potter fans are burrowing into the final book about the fictional realm of wizardry that literally changed our social fabric.

To these loyal readers, it's been a tough wait to find out how it all ends.

"I feel connected to Harry," said 13-year-old Kwesi Haynes, trying to explain his fascination with the series. Haynes, like millions of global fans, had read all six books and planned to purchase the seventh this weekend.

But beyond the worldwide hype and cloak costumes of Harry Potter, how much have the books affected students' desire to read? The answer is a lot, according to a 2006 study released by an independent research company and the book's publisher, Scholastic.

The study, which was discussed by Scholastic officials Friday after the book's unveiling in New York, surveyed 500 children in 25 U.S. cities. It found that 51 percent said they hadn't read books for fun before they started reading Harry Potter.

That was the case for Kwesi, who once attended several special education classes, but now makes A and B grades in Newport News mainstream reading classes. He insists the Harry Potter books were his inspiration.


"I never liked reading when I was 11 years old," said Kwesi, who began reading the series at the encouragement of his grandfather, Hurbert L. Dickens.

Kwesi said he realized after he started reading Harry Potter that he would start to enjoy reading. Now Kwesi - much to his grandfather's delight - is almost finished with his sixth book for the summer.

The Scholastic-sponsored study also said that childrens' attitude toward literature in general has changed in the post-Potter world. Seventy-six percent of children surveyed said Harry Potter has made them interested in reading other books.


"It was the first big series that I had been read to as a child," said Graham Young, an incoming eighth-grader at Tabb Middle School in Yorktown. "It made me love reading."
"It's a springboard," said Viky Pedigo, who has worked as a media specialist with the Williamsburg-James City County Schools for more than 30 years.



"Any book that a child is really involved in is going to encourage them to read more books of that sort," Pedigo said. Cameron Blandford, an incoming seventh-grader at Trinity Lutheran School in Newport News, said the books got him started on a reading addiction that became so intense his parents joked that he had a "reading problem."



"We couldn't go anywhere without reading books," said his mother, Lori Blandford. She said her son was introduced to the first book three years ago and never stopped. "He's a hungry little reader."



Cameron, 12, is currently reading the Christian "Left Behind" series and plans to soon begin J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy "The Lord of the Rings."



But there are also some Harry fans who said their love of literature has nothing to do with Harry Potter.



"I've always liked to read," said 12-year-old Alan Salimov, who will attend seventh grade at Norfolk Academy and who constantly reads adventure and fantasy books. "Anything that has a story, I'll read."



In fact, one avid reader said the Potter books were a bore and didn't get past book one.



"I didn't like reading them because it wasn't that interesting," said 10-year-old Meredith Young, who was turned off by all the talk of wizards and owls in the first chapter.



Still, the survey findings hold true for at least one Hampton Roads student who now reads a book instead of watching a movie.



"I am enjoying reading a lot more," said Kwesi. He plans to purchase the final Harry Potter book with his mother this weekend. "I wonder what's going to happen?"



Soon enough he will know.