I haven’t read the HP books yet because I want to wait and read them with my daughter when she’s old enough. She’s only one now, so it’ll be awhile. We’re starting with board books. :) I read to her every day, but mostly she just wants to chew on them. *g*

I’ll do everything I can to foster a love of reading in her because it brought me so much joy growing up. I was a reading fool and came home with stacks of books from the library to devour every weekend. It helps, I think, that we don’t have cable or satellite. We get one channel — PBS. Sometimes we watch Sesame Street, but that’s it. It’s a practice I plan to continue. I’d rather have her playing and using her imagination and, later on…reading.

I figure if there’s nothing out there to get her excited about reading when she’s older, I’ll just write something. It’ll be quite a genre change from my current endeavors. *g*

Anyway, I rambled, but you hit on something I think about a lot.

Amen :) One can only hope there will be another fantastically popular series to take Harry’s place, so that the trend of bookstore parties with kids (and adults!) can continue.

I think every kid has a book that will call to them, that will pull them into its world and show them the magic of a good story. In a way, the Harry Potter books make me sad precisely because they’re so widespread. Chances are, there are a lot of Anne Shirley or Cassie Logan kids out there who are making due with Harry Potter simply because no one has taken the time to introduce them to books like Anne of Green Gables or Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry.

The Harry Potter hype has probably gotten a lot of families talking about books that otherwise wouldn’t have. But the media shouldn’t be responsible for making kids read, that’s the parents job. Sure, there probably won’t be another series that your kids will be peer-pressured into reading, but you know your kids better than a bunch of marketing execs. Give them a book that you loved, a book you think they’ll love. Introduce them to the incredible diversity of voices and stories out there and chances are, one of those books will be the one that makes your child laugh and cry and read when no one’s watching.

There were faults?

Apart from that, I’m not sure I agree. It’s important my children are literate. Naturally, as someone who gets a huge amount of pleasure from books, I’d like them to share my interest. Does it actually matter if they love reading? I’m less sure. If my daughter’s favourite place in the world is not the bookshop, but the hockey field, does that – apart from indicating a cock-up of gargantuan proportions at the hospital – matter?

The local library here is really kid-friendly, with a train to play in, little chairs and teddy bears. The kids love to go. Would it be great to see another series like Harry Potter come along and capture the imagination of millions of readers? Sure. Be great to write a series like that, too. But either way, we’re raising happy little readers who cry if we don’t let them have books in bed. If they grow up with books and parents who read, I think reading comes pretty naturally to kids.

It’s been shown that if a parent reads, a child is more likely to read

&

but it still falls to parent to get children involved. The love of books and reading inevitably starts at home with parent that not only promote reading but live by example

This is pretty much the bottom line. Fostering a love for reading, and making it a valid way to spend one’s time is vital. And this doesn’t mean that you can’t own a TV, or that video games must be banned. It just means that books have to be available, and they have to be presented as worthy.

my son is dyslexic and reading has been a struggle for him from day one. He HATED reading. Hated. It. ::clutches heart:: He’s nineteen and never read a single Harry Potter Book. But he didn’t mind being read to, or told stories.

You could be talking about my brother here. I finally found the “right” books to hook him, and now he’s an avid (if slow) reader.

Eventually when he was around 10yrs I turned him on to comic books (which I used to collect into my mid-teens) as a way of making reading not such a chore. He’s now an avid collector of comic books and graphic novels himself, has amazing storytelling skills and a strong interest in screenwriting. We now joke about starting a mother/son literary dynasty and collaborating on something one day.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about, Jane. All you have to do is pass your love of books onto her, she’ll make her own excitement and share it with you. :-)

Like Wendy, there is some type of bliss in owning my own collection of books. Even as a child, I loved that. I remember I would re-arrange them. Sometimes I would order them by size. Sometimes by color but mostly by author. I even loved the dewey decimal system. God, I was such a geek.

But, maybe, hopefully, a new series can succeed, now that they’ve seen what HP can do?

At least once your daughter is the right age, she can zip through the books and that will a fun, intense read—if she enjoys them, of course!

I want that experience for my child. I want the bookstore to be the most fun place that she could possibly think of going.

She probably will feel that way Jane, because you’re her mother. While I adore Harry, and the excitement surrounding him, something akin to Potter-mania is not necessary to instill a love of reading in children. It falls on the parent. Even though my mother was extremely overworked (full time job, 3 kids, caring for an aging parent), we made trips to the library when I was a kid. And once I got old enough? I was allowed to ride my bike to the library and check out books (any books!) for myself. Once I had disposable income? The sheer bliss of being able to “own” my own collection of books.

If parents make reading a priority, so will their children.

OTOH, my family had its own little hype machine–my parents read whatever I read, and we read aloud because we all enjoyed it. Not all kids have that, so maybe the external hype does some good.

My mother was a librarian, and when I was waiting for her to be done working, I would find books. When I came across a writer I loved (I remember finding Mary Stewart), I would feel that sense of needing to read them all. I would be in a mania and joy until her books were gone, and I’d go on to another one.

So without Harry, we have to manufacture our own excitement for stories. I don’t think my need to read Harry is that much different than my Mary Stewart or Alice Hoffman or Anne Tyler gorges, except it is culturally supported.

If you read to your daughter and go to bookstores with your daughter- and go to the library with her-if you support her desire to read and maybe to write, you can do for her what Harry might have done for other children. My kids didn’t do Harry (22, 20), and both read prodigiously, one is a writer. There are family ways to develop the love of literature.

Jessica Inclan

All of my book experience really came from the public library. And I would just randomly look through the shelves for things I thought would interest me. I was big time into books about magic and talking animals. Anyone remember Ruth Chew? She was one of my faves. The Half-Magic series was delightful. When I got to be about 8 or 9, I started to even read some adult things like “The Hobbit.” Because there just weren’t enough books I could find in the genre I liked.

Oh, if I were a child today, what a lovely time I would have! So many great series to choose from, and most of them about magic and alterna-worlds. Lucky, lucky children.

My son (who’s almost 3) is just starting to be interested in books. I’ve been buying books for him since pre-birth, but his preferences are definitely showing through.

My boys fall into the age group you are talking about. My 20-year old’s reading life has been marked forever by HP. In fact we were discussing it after he finished book 7.

While the incredible impact of Harry is not likely to be repeated any time soon you were also right when you said its affects will be felt for a long time. I agree with what others have said. With your love of reading your daughter is likely to be a reader as well. Both of my boys are. They’ve been going to the library and bookstore their whole lives. They are professional book browsers now from all the times they’ve been to the library and bookstore with me.

We always find UBS and bookstore when we travel. They think it’s a normal part of taking a trip. Not all my sons’ friends are readers but they have gravitated to other kids who share their interests, so will your daughter…and she has you.

When I was a teen, I first read Lord of the Rings. It was about 9:30 on a school night, and I finished the second part, The Two Towers. And I freaked out when the book ended and begged my mom to drive me to the mall so I could buy the next book because I had to, had to, HAD TO know what happened next. This was way before Harry.

I do hope that readers who waded through the world of Harry will stick around. There are tons of marvelous books out there, waiting to be rediscovered. And new ones are getting published every week.

But I hope there will be another one. And certainly many authors and publishers are working hard and hoping, too!

But even though we didn’t have Harry Potter when I was little, we did have what to me was the passionate pleasure of the library. I did a signing at my local library, and in the introduction the head librarian (who knew me when I was a child) talked about how that image was imprinted on all the librarians’ memories: my sister and I when we were little, arriving at the desk to check out, with stacks of books rising higher than our heads.

So…Harry Potter or not, here’s hoping plenty of kids still find books to change their worlds.

I don’t read HP~neither does she, but she does have a love of books. I was a total book junkie at her age…maybe it’s genetic. ;)