Harry Potter and the Reading Revolution

I remember the first time I ever saw a Harry Potter book.  I was in a book store in upstate New York, and my mother was pushing me to find my "Beach Book" - something funny, something silly, something different from my usual reading material.  She picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, and said "this looks like fun - and you love magic!"  I didn't find out it was part of a series for another two years.

I was in the minority.  I was an avid reader, devouring everything from Lois Lowry to Orson Scott Card to Charles Dickens.  Meanwhile, as I sat on the beach "relaxing" with a less challenging book, teenagers around the world were reading the same book as their gateway drug to visual learning.  Every teacher, every parent, every magazine, and every TV station had a story about the student who wouldn't read - but loved Harry!  And from Harry Potter came other books; suddenly these teenagers were reading their required reading in school!  And now, a decade later, my own friends are finding ways to incorporate Harry Potter into their classrooms, as teachers.

It's possible that the draw of the Harry Potter books would have passed.  I'm not sure if today's 13 and 14 year olds would be sucked in the way my generation was; after all, there are no more books coming out, and thus the bookstore parties, the classroom countdowns, and the general enthusiasm has dwindled.  But now there are films!  And airing last night, a documentary about J.K. Rowling: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/16/arts/television/16rowling.html?_r=1&re...

What do I take from this?  Some students love reading, and will always love reading.  Others are enticed by films, and the lure of a film made from a book can help entice them to read the book.  Why not take this one step farther with more books, as so many teachers did with Harry Potter?  Create book-themed classrooms (a wizard's world, in Potter's case); help students to discover more connections between reality and their books, be it local politics, the environment, or games and films based on their reading material; introduce websites and create their own sequels - the list goes on!

Maybe, in the end, it's not Harry Potter who had (and has) the power to continually enthrall students.  Maybe it's what we did with him.