Irresistible Rise of Harry Potter

Rating:
Summary: So that is why Harry is so popular!
Review: I would rate this as a tie for the most interesting book on this phenomenon of those I have read so far. This book looks at the cultural and political timing that seems to have made Harry the irresistible darling of the literacy efforts in the UK and since in many respects those things are duplicated in the US, voila, Harry is irresistible there also.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: This author along with all the other HP critics overthink the Harry Potter phenomenom. What is going on inthe county has a minimal effect on what fiction people read, especially for grade schoolers.
People liek the idea that there is a world nobody knows about. It's not going to be complex literature because its aimed toward younger readers. JK Rowling has a good plot and a gift for writing.

Rating:
Summary: why now?
Review: This is an excellent and subtle, but unfortunately too brief (hence four stars), overview of the Harry Potter craze. The main question Blake seeks to answer is: why now? Why and how did the Harry Potter series become so popular and why now? He situates the books in historical context--easier said than done. There was much going on in English culture and education that contributed to the books' success. Beginning in the mid-90s, Blake looks less at the books' possible past textual sources and spends more time exploring the books' contemporary cultural sources. I'm currently teaching a university course with _Azkaban_ as a text and may assign readings from Blake's book as secondary reading, both as overview of what came before and as an example of how to read carefully and respect a text and its attendant complications.