Elaine Showalter and Christopher Benfey

Dear Chris,

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Today is a very big day in Britain for 6- and 9-year-olds--the much-awaited publication of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the cult series of adventures of a young wizard at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft, written by single mom Jo Rowling. Advance sales of the book have toppled Thomas Harris' blockbuster Hannibal from No. 1 on the bestseller list. The editor of the magazine The Bookseller said in the Guardian today that he "can't recall in British publishing history any other novel selling as fast as these two. And the other extraordinary thing is that the Harry Potter is a children's novel." Sales of the book in the shops don't begin until 3:45 p.m., so kids won't skip school to buy it.

I have to confess that I don't get the hype at all. I've read the first two Harry Potters, which to my adult, American sensibility are very old-fashioned English boarding-school stories, with prefects, detention, house points, custard pudding, Top Girls, bullies, swots, and outdated slang, along with heavy wizard whimsy and lots of ogres and Darth Vader types. There is definitely a mystery about Harry's paternity, that old epic plot trick; but that narrative has never interested me much. I discovered when I was 35 that my mother had been married before, and some friends thought I might actually be the child of the first husband, but I've never had much curiosity about it. Maybe it's a guy thing. Anyway, not my thing.

But I digress. To my relief, the reviews of Harry Potter in the papers this morning are positive but mixed. Sarah Johnson in the Times thinks that "in a school of several hundred young magicians, there should be some more colourful characters than the dozen or so we have met so far." Nicholas Tucker in the Independent thinks that Rowling deserves "a broomstick medal for services to education," but admits that the stories are variations on the tradition with "a final house match and the vital winning of the school cup." The Times actually has an editorial called "Pottering Along," which begins "At 3:45 this afternoon a hush will descend upon the nation's playgrounds." But they also think that the "publishing prodigy" is "market-driven," a case of "an elaborate teeny-bopper hype," with clever ad campaigns and consumerist stunts. "Wild about Harry? Join the queue."

What do your kids think? Are they fans?

Best,
Elaine

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