I was reading the online reviews of Percy Jackson The Lightning Thief movie and several comments seemed to focus on juvenile series. I like the Rick Riordan Percy Jackson series . I haven't seen the movie yet, but it looks better than most of the stuff out now.
Then they started attacking J. K. Rowling. It appears that she is not original enough for them. She stole things from Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea books. She had a trio of friends facing the evil ones. She had a school. She had a kid discover he has magic after suffering a lonely, abusive home.
The lonely abusive home is stolen from Roald Dahl. Well, I must give that one up. Roald Dahl and Joan Aiken and Jane Austen loved bad families and neglectful or absent parents. So did Dickens.
What a rip-off J. K. Rowling is! Stealing unhappy children from other writers!
She didn't invent hippogriffs or magic wands or unicorns!
I don't think that she invented final exams, either.
How could we all have been so fooled? What were we thinking? Had we forgotten that originality is the sole purpose of writing? That all writing is judged only by its "firstiness." Because world literature is merely a precursor to a blog, after all.
I liked the Harry Potter series. I bought the first book for my son as a Christmas present and read it quickly before I had to wrap it and put it under the tree. After that we bought at least one copy on the day it was issued. I had to read fairly fast, since he could be a "spoiler" if I let him.
My younger son (who has said, I hate reading more than any other child in America) liked the Harry Potter books enough to read the first one or two over again. He started reading them in the third grade and read them passionately for about six months. Then he stopped in the middle of the fourth book.
His reading scores jumped to the sixth grade level immediately after the Harry Potter fanatic phase--he was in the first month of fourth grade. During the last two years he has gone to the HP movies. I've seen him occasionally move around a copy of Harry Potter, but I haven't caught him reading it. His latest book love was The Hitchhiker's Guide. I think that a teacher he liked gave him an old copy so he was willing to try it.
What he reads voluntarily: Wikipedia articles and Maximum PC magazine.
J. K. Rowling came to New Orleans to read and sign books back in 2008. She was on her second American book tour--visiting New York, Los Angeles, and Katrina-Town.
She allowed a larger audience for her reading in New Orleans--800 public school kids got tickets and a handful of local adults were allowed in. She signed something like 800 books in an hour. She read and answered audience questions--it was kind of neat show they put on.
Some of the kids were big-time fans and some didn't really know the books--but it was great to have someone world-famous come to town, especially then.
New Orleans has a high rate of illiteracy. One of the issues is how to encourage kids to read enough to be able to read well--to read without effort. If the "cool" factor of Harry Potter helped a few kids read enough to improve their skills, that's good enought for me. I have enough kids who seem to judge every book by how thick it is or how many words are on a page--and the only "thick" book they'll consider is Harry Potter.
So Harry's all right with me.
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I love JK Rowling, even if it's just because the charisma surrounding her books urges kids to read, and makes reading a little cooler. As an adult reader, any of us can critique her books chapter by chapter and find them seriously wanting, but to give the lady her due -- she did it. And for all of us who might say "I could do that!"...er...we didn't.
P.S. Your son might like the Red Dwarf series if you can find it: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, and, Better Than Life. They are seriously, subversively, hilarious.
P.S. Your son might like the Red Dwarf series if you can find it: Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers, and, Better Than Life. They are seriously, subversively, hilarious.
People "hate" JK Rowling because she's taken all sorts of myths and legends and fantasy creatures, jumbled them up into a coming of age/boarding school story and made millions.
Thus leaving every frustrated writer clawing at themselves shrieking "I could have done that and made pots of money", so they "hate" her cos ...... she did and they didn't.
Watch an interview with her though, and she's actually a lovely woman, and I think she deserves every happiness.
Thus leaving every frustrated writer clawing at themselves shrieking "I could have done that and made pots of money", so they "hate" her cos ...... she did and they didn't.
Watch an interview with her though, and she's actually a lovely woman, and I think she deserves every happiness.
Thanks. I still don't know what the critics were finding wanting. Thanks for the Red Dwarf suggestion. Is it related to the Red Dwarf tv series, which I watch on youtube after first seeing it on BBC America a few years ago.
So, in other words, we're just JEALOUS of J. K. Rowling. I can admit that. It now seems like it was TOO easy. But she wrote and wrote. She submitted the book to a lot of publishers who rejected it. If I were her, I'd list the editors and publishers that rejected the series in the front of every book--just to make them seethe with embarrassment. I think that she was lucky to get a decent publisher who was ready to promote the series. Scholastic paid a huge price to have the US rights, so they needed it to be successful. I don't think anybody thought that she'd be able to buy a castle in Scotland even then.
Jealousy, yes, I'll admit to that too. A large helping of snarling at myself "Idiot! Coulda thought of that!" also.
Wouldn't it be fun if she did release a list of publishers who rejected the first book? Probably no need to though, because looking at how profitable the series is, they're likely nervous wrecks and do themselves more mental damage in a day than the public could do in a week.
Wouldn't it be fun if she did release a list of publishers who rejected the first book? Probably no need to though, because looking at how profitable the series is, they're likely nervous wrecks and do themselves more mental damage in a day than the public could do in a week.
As a nerdy, reader-type, "live in the library" girl as a child...I loved to read things tinged with the supernatural. Zilpha Keatley Snyder and Madeleine L'Engle and someone you already mentioned....Joan Aiken (Wolves of Willoughby Chase? WOW) were favorites.
As a grown up, I became a high school teacher, book store employee and even worked reference and circulation at my home town library just after college. This is to, I suppose, trumpet my "book cred". (*sheepish*)
The issue I took, initially, with the Harry Potter phenomenon was the assumption by many that prior to her, there was NO good children's fiction written. It just hurt my little feelings that so many of my favorites had never enjoyed the "star making machinery" behind Rowling's work.
I even resisted reading them for many years. As a matter of fact, I just read the entire series in the summer of 2009. I realize, of course that they are a modern masterpiece of children's lit. and am duly chastised. I don't think I ever resented Rowling, perse...just the sad fact that so many really good works were somehow being missed by kids.
As a grown up, I became a high school teacher, book store employee and even worked reference and circulation at my home town library just after college. This is to, I suppose, trumpet my "book cred". (*sheepish*)
The issue I took, initially, with the Harry Potter phenomenon was the assumption by many that prior to her, there was NO good children's fiction written. It just hurt my little feelings that so many of my favorites had never enjoyed the "star making machinery" behind Rowling's work.
I even resisted reading them for many years. As a matter of fact, I just read the entire series in the summer of 2009. I realize, of course that they are a modern masterpiece of children's lit. and am duly chastised. I don't think I ever resented Rowling, perse...just the sad fact that so many really good works were somehow being missed by kids.
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