(who finds the notion of watching or reading about the 'adventures' of children not only unappealing, but downright appalling)
OK, I'm not trying to convert anyone here because it's highly annoying to do that.
But...
Tank - I finally broke down and picked up the first HP book because I was so sick of hearing all of the hype and just had to know why in the world this "kiddie" book was such a freakin' big deal. I came into it as a hard-core cynic, figuring I'd see why all of these kids and tweenies were so jazzed but that I'd write off the entire phenomenon as something akin to those horrid "Goosebump" books that had my 13 year old nephew in a twirl. Pulp fiction for the single and newly-double digit set. Twenty four hours later, I was in the bookstore picking up the second and third books.
Although the characters in these books are indeed children, I would not classify these stories as "adventures of children". In fact, I think I could safely say that you could take every single child-character in this book, add ten years to their ages and move the setting to a college and the story would not have to be changed one iota. JK Rowling does not pull any punches - she deals with death and abandonment, the stress of responsibility and dealing with special powers and being different than everyone around you and what that means to your life. All very adult themes - actually, a lot of the same themes presented in Superman stories.
Nor does her writing pander to a child-level. In fact, I often wonder that younger children read and actually understand these books. The themes are very sophisticated, and other than the uber-cool aspect of being a wizard or witch and getting to do magic, I wonder that a lot of this doesn't just fly over the heads of most of the target audience.
So, again, not converting anyone because if your mind is made up against it, I know that it is futile to try to change it. Just wanted to chime in here in defence of these books because I'd hate to see someone run away simply because they pictured volumes full of things like "Harry and Ron went to the video arcade and then met Hermione at the movies where they threw popcorn at the cute girls from Potions class."
Lynn
PS - I have yet to see PoA and am looking forward to it. And I will be one of those geeky freaks in line at midnight the day that Book 6 is released.
