J.K. Rowling Is Not My Co-Pilot
Okay, let's all make sure we're at the same page in our reader's manual.
It's not that adults are reading the Harry Potter quintology in their leisure time that bothers me.
It's they do so and brag about it the next day!
I don't think a grown person should do a literary SuperBowl Shuffle when they manage to zoom through an entire edition of the Rowling tome in a single weekend. It's written for children. I'd be concerned if you didn't get through it on the long weekend. The people that flaunt the fact they burned through the Chamber of Secrets in under 72 hours of straight reading are morons. These are the people that show up to work and sing about how they ate an entire bowl of candy for dinner.
And I'm not going to even try to argue in and around the idea of Harry Potter teaching witchcraft or Satanism. First of all, only metal-heads from the early 1980's believe in Satanism. Secondly, not once in either the movies or any of the books did Harry play Judas Priest backwards. As for witchcraft? I'm more worried about children learning about "real religion" from the media than I am about them learning about a fake one.
And I'm not taking a book-mobile thumpin' dump on the Potter series. Anything that gets kids reading something other than their cellphone text messages is great with me. I have young family members who've read and tremendously enjoyed them. They pour over the pages of each book; immersed in a world of beautiful fiction and literature. I hear that the characters are more rich and diverse than those of the musty pages of 'classic books' they force-feed them in schools. I'm all for it.
Celebrate reading.
Just don't come into work on a Monday morning and grand-stand about how you read the book really, really fast and it was so really, really good and that the characters are so awesome and you wish you could fly and that Voldemort was really, really scary and....
Take a breath. Calm down. Go easy.
Here's your helmet; don't fall down on the way to your cubicle, Boo Radley.
It's not that adults are reading the Harry Potter quintology in their leisure time that bothers me.
It's they do so and brag about it the next day!
I don't think a grown person should do a literary SuperBowl Shuffle when they manage to zoom through an entire edition of the Rowling tome in a single weekend. It's written for children. I'd be concerned if you didn't get through it on the long weekend. The people that flaunt the fact they burned through the Chamber of Secrets in under 72 hours of straight reading are morons. These are the people that show up to work and sing about how they ate an entire bowl of candy for dinner.
And I'm not going to even try to argue in and around the idea of Harry Potter teaching witchcraft or Satanism. First of all, only metal-heads from the early 1980's believe in Satanism. Secondly, not once in either the movies or any of the books did Harry play Judas Priest backwards. As for witchcraft? I'm more worried about children learning about "real religion" from the media than I am about them learning about a fake one.
And I'm not taking a book-mobile thumpin' dump on the Potter series. Anything that gets kids reading something other than their cellphone text messages is great with me. I have young family members who've read and tremendously enjoyed them. They pour over the pages of each book; immersed in a world of beautiful fiction and literature. I hear that the characters are more rich and diverse than those of the musty pages of 'classic books' they force-feed them in schools. I'm all for it.
Celebrate reading.
Just don't come into work on a Monday morning and grand-stand about how you read the book really, really fast and it was so really, really good and that the characters are so awesome and you wish you could fly and that Voldemort was really, really scary and....
Take a breath. Calm down. Go easy.
Here's your helmet; don't fall down on the way to your cubicle, Boo Radley.
