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.