The Harry Potter Effect

When I was a kid, I essentially grew up in the library.  My mom is a children's librarian, so every day after school, the bus would drop me off at the library, and I'd spend the next several hours every day reading something I'd found.  So basically, I had, like, two friends and I read a lot.

What I've identifed by looking back is a distinct rift in the perceived popularity of reading, epecially fantasy, before and after Harry Potter's debut in 1997.  So today, I'm going to look at "the Harry Potter Effect," test the validity of its definition, and see where fiction stands tody.

Mostly I grew up reading fiction in the pre-Potter 90s: Lois Lowry, Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix, Caroline B. Cooney, Avi, Philip Pullman, etc.  But many of the things I read were outside of my literary generation completely.  I read pretty much anything and everything Lois Duncan had ever touched in sixth grade, and for the longest time, Richard Adams' Watership Down was my favorite book of all time.  (I had a fantastic plan to run away after middle school and see the Downs myself in England.  This did not occur.)

Thing is, I just don't remember books being as popular as they seem today.  The first popular book I remember being talked about at school was Holes by Louis Sacher and that was mostly because a movie version was coming out.  I remember talking about the end of the Animorphs series with one kid in elementary school, but he was probably less popular than I was, if that were even possible.  If anyone else read as much as I did, they kept that fact on the DL.

Now, however, reading seems more popular with more kids (and this might just be my distanced perception).  My little cousin, elementary/middle school-age, had a serious injury a couple months back, and while he was stuck in bed to recover, he did his homework and read constantly because he wanted to.  Even among my own peer group, friends who never read a book at all ever in grade school are talking about popular books on Facebook.  Since Harry Potter, we have had a competition for most popular, most talked about book: Eragon, Hunger Games, Mortal Instruments, Divergent, not to mention (and trust me, I loathe to) the success of Twilight.

So is this the Harry Potter Effect?

I remember when Harry Potter came out (I'll always remember because I had just turned 11 too), and in the beginning (at least up until the paperback release, for sure), it was only us book nerds at school reading the series.  I'm not alone in that experience.  One poster in a 2011 CollegeNet discussion on Harry Potter's effect on fantasy noted that

Between the years of 1998 and 2007, I spent 6 years working in either a bookstore or elementary school library. Harry Potter became really popular right around the time that the third book was published in 1999.

Soon after, everyone I knew, popular or nerd or whatever else, was reading Harry Potter.  By the time the fourth book came out, my friends at school who hadn't confessed to reading much before were hooked.

I do not remember a single midnight release of a book in my childhood before Harry Potter.  That was something for movies and Black Friday sales.  Not books.

Bizarre.

The Harry Potter Effect on Reading

So has Harry Potter increased interest in reading?

Turns out, not a much as we'd like to think.  It's more that Harry Potter increased reading for those who became devoted to the series itself, not books in general.  As Dana Gioia, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, has said, “It got millions of kids to read a long and reasonably complex series of books. The trouble is that one Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading.”

I'm inclined in part to believe Motoko Rich in her 2007 New York Times article when she posited that the effects of the Harry Potter series on reading in grade students was, against popular assumption and promotion, limited.  She has found that

[F]ederal statistics show that the percentage of youngsters who read for fun continues to drop significantly as children get older, at almost exactly the same rate as before Harry Potter came along.

Ouch.  So why do we continue to put so much faith in the Harry Potter Effect?  Is there such at thing at all, or is the definition of the HP Effect something different?

If Rich is right and the Harry Potter series has not forever altered reading rates, I would argue that the books have affected the perceved popularity of reading.  Books are no longer for nerds--not always, anyway.  (Again, Louisiana throws a curve.)  Books for kids are now points of discussion in the way the Pokemon was for my generation.  Harry Potter, at least in my experience, legitimized the choice to read for pleasure among a generation that had kept hidden or starved that desire.

This to me is the Harry Potter Effect.  The legitimization of reading as an acceptable, non-nerdy exercise among grade students.

I'd bet one gentleman's dollar that kids who are reading today would have been reading anyway with or without Harry Potter.  However, Rowling's success came in allowing young readers the ability to vocalize their interest with derision--or at least as much as they would have before.  Now readingwas a legitimate, socially acceptable hobby.  Such an analysis would hold up with both Rich's findings and the recent popularity of Harry's YA heirs. 


The Harry Potter Effect on the Fantasy Genre

Most of all, this legitimization of reading comes in the genre that needed it most: fantasy.  For sure, the Harry Potter Effect has to do in particular with young adult fantasy. 

Let's take another look at the popular books of the 90s.  There are some fantasy, like my favorite Sabriel, but not to the extent of fantasy flooding the market today.  Every popular YA novel, it seems, has either a fantasy or science fiction setting.  I hate mentioning Twilight again, but Meyer's series, Paolini's Inheritance series, Hunger Games, Mortal Instruments, Divergent, etc. are just a few of the now-popular books teens and young adults are devouring.

 

If you've never read this, go do so.  Immediately.

This has even sparked the commercialization of old-school fantasy/science fiction as movies, like the new Ender's Game flick coming out soon, Jackson's Tolkien reboot, and of course, Game of Thrones on HBO.

As a closet Hegelian, I'm aware of the presence of cycles in our world.  Maybe Harry Potter has filled the shoes for this generation's Lord of the Rings.  Maybe fantasy was just due back in our culture.

And if so, the next question becomes the all-inclusive WHY?  Why now?  Why Tolkien then and Harry Potter now?  No doubt, Lord of the Rings' creation during the horrors and turmoil of World War II and its publication in its aftermath had something to do with its effect on audiences.

The same can be said for Harry Potter, although the game and setting have certainly changed.  In our media, we can certainly examine the dissatisfaction with government, the fear of collapse and strife, and the anxiety present in our society as contributing factors demanding fantasy as everything fantasy is: another world to escape to.  That said, our need for escapism in current socity is the subject of another post...

If we branch this discussion to mediums other than books, the conversation certainly changes (and I won't get into it here), but you can still see some effect. Buffy was a 90s child, but I think the original run's cult following is worth recognizing. In addition, it also stands to note (and yes, I am aware of the many other contributing factors so don't tar/feather me) that Buffy got shafted majorly after Season 5 when it was dropped by WB in 2001 and picked up by UPN for two more seasons.

Let's throw in some dates to give that cancelation some context. Interesting that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone first topped the New York Times bestseller list in 1999. But if my personal observations about Harry Potter's gradual snowballing into popularity among the masses, it makes sense that the delayed HP Effect wasn't enough to save Buffy then.

Compare that to today's market. The Vampire Diaries, Supernatural (still going strong), Teen Wolf, Once Upon a Time, and the canon continuation of Buffy's Season 8 as a comic book... The list goes on.

Complications to this Analysis and Counter-Argument: the large success of the X-Files. Maybe the purists are right though, and there's a fundamental difference in society's acceptance of alien-supernatural vs. vampires and other whatnot. Or, the X-Files appealed to an adult audience, whereas the other shows listed speak directly to a younger generation's interests and, pun intended, fantasies.


The Lasting Effect(s)

It seems clear that whatever Harry Potter's effect on reading, its popularity has certainly impacted the market and made it more fantasy-friendly for readers. 

But what about the other effects, like those on young readers' developing system of beliefs?  Paul Kurtz, professor emeritus of philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo, lamented such sentiments in his article on "Neo-Humanism" for the Council of Secular Humanism's publication:

I do not wish to be ac­cused of being an old fuddy-duddy, but I deplore the fact that millions of young people rush out to devour books of fantasy, touting witchcraft and other paranormal phenomena, without even a semblance of skepticism.

His fear is that because of Harry Potter's popularization of fantasy, the market has become inundated with the supernatural and no basis on, you know, the actual natural: science and the like.  As a result, young readers grow up with ill-formed idea of how the world works and grow up with little appreciation of science and fact.  Kurtz continues:

At their best, books of fiction can inspire human imagination while remaining in touch with the empirical world. One might argue that books of blatant, untrammeled fantasy such as the Harry Potter books and films have a negative effect, especially when these tales are not presented—or understood—as pure fantasy. I surely believe in freedom of the press and the aesthetic power of novels; but I wish that there were counterbalancing literature to pure fantasy.

Personally, maybe a little imagination in the market will keep liberal arts on the playing field for at least one more generation...but that's besides the point.

Another question expresses a little more cynicism than I had planned before my morning coffee: if people are indiscriminately reading more fantasy because of Harry Potter, are they necessarily reading quality fiction and can they tell the difference? 

I'm not bashing Harry Potter, but it's true that subsequent fantasy publications already mentioned are not the same quality of writing and story-telling as Rowling's masterpiece.

Who's naming names?

Trying to have some faith in humanity, I'd want to argue that yes, everyone should be able to tell the difference between good writing and bad writing, barring personal but justifed differences of taste. 

However, the amount of terrible fan fiction out there and the success of Twilight (God, it does hurt to write those words) make me question that reality.  So what will the long-term Harry Potter Effect on fiction be?  What will the quality of fiction be?

Just some questions to consider as we move forward into the literary future.