Back in 2001, the first Harry Potter novel was released. At the time I was only 2 years old and these books are aimed at an age of middle school/high schoolers, so clearly I could not read it at that age. But as I grew up and got older I started seeing these books everywhere and I mean EVERYWHERE. I could be watching a football game and there was a kid sitting with his family a couple seats down reading Harry Potter. I even remember going to Rhythms on the River (a local event where random bands would play) and I saw one of my friends sitting in a lawn chair reading one of these books. This was around the time of when I was in 6th grade. Now I am currently 19 years old and to this day, I have never read a Harry Potter novel or watched a single movie. I have watched parts of some of the movies, but I have never sat down and fully watched a movie. I will say that it is astonishing how much these novels took over the world when I was a kid.
J.K. Rowling is the British author of the Harry Potter series and since its release, there have been numerous more books made. Movies have been done based off of the books and they have blown up. When I was in middle school I remember almost everyone reading at least one of the Harry Potter books. The books were very large in size, ranging from 200-700 pages. The main reason why I never read them was that I was never a fan of books as a kid unless they were small and had a good story. For example, I really enjoyed The Lightning Thief series. But because some of the Harry Potter books were so large I was honestly too afraid to read them. Even though I never read them or saw any of the movies, I was still able to notice the impact it had on literature.
First off, J.K. Rowling is a British author so you would expect the books to mainly only be recognized in Britain but that is not true at all. The books BLEW UP... everywhere. They spread like a disease all over the globe. It really shows how dominant fiction is to the younger audiences. I know there are many adults who have read the novels too but the main audience was the younger side. I personally feel like literature is losing it's touch as time goes on. People are more interested in technology and watching films rather than reading a book. I feel like the growth of this series rekindled British literature, especially in the 2000s. There aren't many series that take the world by storm but I feel as if Harry Potter was a big step forward for the culture of British literature. It really shows how much fiction is taking over in the literature realm right now. I may eventually read the novels but I know for a fact I will eventually watch the movies because they do seem really interesting and for them to get as popular as they did I have to see what the hype was about.
Ian Ransonet
Hey Ian! First off I think it is crazy that you have not read or seen anything in the Harry Potter series. When the first book came out in 1997 I was only a year old and I obviously could not read it. I am from a small town in the Bible Belt so there was actually a lot of controversy over allowing kids to read these books and watch the movies. Thankfully, my parents did not think that reading the books and seeing the movies would harm me. I am just like you in the aspect of not really enjoying reading. So after seeing the first Harry Potter movie I knew I wanted to read the book but I was only in the fifth grade and size of the book terrified me. Once I picked up the book I could not put it down. My mom would have to come in my room at night and take the book away so I did not stay up all night reading! J.K. Rowling has so much detail in her writing that really makes the story come to life. After that I made my mom go out and buy all the rest of the books in the series. I could not put them down. The Harry Potter series actually changed the way I thought about reading. I guess I did not like reading because I could not find anything that interested me. So I highly recommend reading the books. I would even say read the books before the movies because of the backstory in the books! -Savanna
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