Only a month to go for the publication of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and I'm busy re-reading the earlier 5 books in the series. What's so special about these kiddy books, several of my "grown-up" friends ask. My only reply is "read them if you want to know". Several millions of words have already been written about Rowling's bestsellers, so I'm not going to add any pathetic mini-review to that. Let me talk instead about what we used to read when we were kids.
Enid Blyton used to be staple fare. The Famous Five series, the Secret Seven series, the Find-Outers, the Faraway Tree books, the Circus trilogy...all great stuff for the under-10 age group. The 3 Investigators and the Hardy Boys (Nancy Drew for the girls) were for the 8-13 tweens, with the first named by far the best. Alistair MacLean and Agatha Christie were the natural successors during the teen years.
But by the time we were in our college years, we realized that kids just did not read any more. PC gaming and cable TV were much better company for our younger siblings. And then came the phenomenon called Harry Potter. This is just to thank you J.K. Rowling...a thousand Hosannas to you and your imagination...
2 comments:
true, but on the other hand this rowling chick is only copying off earlier original works. kids these days would be better off reading robert dahl, enid blyton and astrid lindgren. Instead of reading this harry potter drivel.
One man's drivel can be another man's entertainment...Dahl is cool though, and Blyton stands in a class of her own.
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