Posted by Mike Dennis on September 29, 2003 at 08:10:59 from 195.92.67.68 user MTD.
In Reply to: Re: Harry Potter posted by Mike Dennis on September 28, 2003 at 09:42:16:
As you have all make good points in repsonse to my original post I thought the best place to comment was here.
The development issue is one I hadn't realised. Most adults will read the first one and not bother with the others if they don't take to it (guilty!), but I have to say I read S&A as a child and was hooked at once. I'm fairly sure if I had read, say, P&M I would have never bothered to look at the others.
Another factor about AR is that seem to be timeless, even though we all know when they were set. In contrast Rowling uses references that in a few years will be outdated and look really odd.
I avoided this point in my first post, but she has to be mention - Enid Blyton. Yes, her characters and plots were often very questionable (I mean here the Famous Five and similar series) but her writing hit the nail on the head. Reading a few of her books got me into proper novel reading, and I soon moved on to better things - AR of course! I feel that Rowling just leads her readers on to more of her books.
Lastly, yes you can't 'make' a child read a particular book; but as long as it is there we hope there is a good chance they will one day pick it up and get hooked - how I started on AR.