Editorial: Is There Life after Harry?
Now that the popular series has ended, it’s feared that kids will never read again
By Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2007
J.K. Rowling was in New York the other day on the final stop of her long-awaited book tour—largely for schoolchildren. Over 1,600 delighted students packed Carnegie Hall, greeting the author with a deafening whoop. After reading from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Rowling, in a manner both warm and witty, answered a dozen or so questions from the audience.
The questions—all excellent—were a testament to the power that the “Harry Potter” series has in the lives of its many readers. Some were about the plot, but others revealed the more personal concerns, and anxieties, we readers bring to stories, as when a high school senior asked the author, “If you could marry anyone from the series, who would it be?”
Fiction, after all, has a near-magical power to live on in readers’ minds, something that psychiatrist and educator Robert Coles taught us years ago.
“We all remember in our own lives times when a book has become for us a signpost, a continuing presence in our lives,” Coles wrote in The Call of Stories (Houghton, 1989). “Novels lend themselves to such purposes; their plots offer a psychological or moral journey, with impasses and breakthroughs, with decisions made and destinations achieved.” For many readers, Harry’s journey will continue to resonate throughout their lives.
But what should be a cause of celebration has—at least in the popular media—been a source of hand-wringing. Now that Rowling’s series has ended, it’s feared that kids will never read again.
Librarians know this is nonsense. True, Harry’s popularity (which, I expect, will be ongoing) gave us a leg up, and savvy librarians have been quick to exploit it. But connecting kids and books doesn’t often have the advantage of a huge media frenzy; it’s more often a one-on-one affair that involves both knowing books and knowing readers.
Book knowledge starts with reading reviews—as many as you can get your hands on—and keeping up with the blogs and electronic lists that discuss books, as well as the myriad awards and “best of” lists that appear every winter. It means carving out time to—you guessed it—read. And it involves sharing those experiences with your colleagues.
In “The Ones That Got Away” (pp. 42–46), we tap into that collective wisdom and highlight some of the best books in recent years that have slipped under the radar. Lend a hand and visit our Web site at slj.com/hiddengems to let us know what great but underappreciated books you and your students have loved.
Knowing readers—talking with kids about their experiences with books—is even more of a challenge these days. In some places, it’s under attack. When school librarians end up managing libraries in three or four schools, and cash-strapped public libraries staff busy children’s rooms with one librarian, how can we work with young people in any meaningful way?
When we argue for better funding for libraries, we fight for many things, from bricks to databases. But in my mind, it’s always to sustain the near-magical power of the imagination.
The recently introduced SKILLs legislation (Strengthening Kids’ Interest in Learning and Libraries Act), for example, would require a certified media specialist in every school by 2010. Yes, it would place librarians under the “highly qualified” category of No Child Left Behind legislation. And yes, it would provide for more funds to stock libraries.
But most importantly, it will ensure that kids will continue to meet Harry and Hermione, Meg and Charles Wallace, Miles “Pudge” Halter, Lucky Trimble, and scores of characters not yet imagined who will live on in children’s lives.
