In my original version of this post, I attributed the view that Harry Potter is "too boring and grown-up for young readers" to Michael Rosen. This was as a result of reading an article headlined just that in the Times (May 19th), which had provoked a lot of debate. However, this is not exactly what Rosen said - see his Guardian column published the next day, "What I really said about Harry Potter".
In the Guardian of 22nd May, Bidisha widened the discussion - "When Harry met sexism: critics just won't accept female fantasy writers as the latest round of JK Rowling-bashing shows" - saying that Rosen had picked up on the acceptability of belittling Rowling and that "according to the backlash, Rowling is swell for dim kiddies, along with Susan Cooper and Diana Wynne Jones..........whie Philip Pullman and Philip Reeve are worthy of adult analysis."
Read them all and see what you think!
I didn't say HP was boring. I said that I hadn't read the books to my 7 year old daughter. She had enjoyed the dvd's but it's a tricky read for the youngest children, particularly if you're reading them to yourself. I wouldn't want to bore (there's the word) my children with something they didn't understand, or was too complex a narrative - like HP.
ReplyDeleteI also said that I didn't read the books by choice as an adult reader. I've read two and a half of them.
I've issued a statement to the press about this, been on radio 5 Live (UK) and Radio 4 (UK), have written a column about it at guardian.co.uk (UK), and rather hoped that people wouldn't repeat a story which at heart wasn't true. I would never say that a book read by millions of children was boring. My comments were twisted in a mischievous way.