Questionable Literature by Coincidence? . . .

[Jennifer Boggess Ramon]

So, this evening the Spouse and I arrived early to a meeting with a 
few friends at a local Chinese buffet place, which happens to be 
located in a strip-type shopping center.  Since said friends run on 
what we call "Musician Standard Time," there was absolutely no point 
in showing up early, so to kill time we stepped into the 
Everything's-A-Dollar store next door.

Guess what we found there?

Go on.  Guess.



(*taps foot, glances at watch, hums the _Jeopardy_ theme*)



Time's Up!

The Nancy Stouffer books.

Yup, they're such poor sellers that they're being sold in dollar 
stores with the no-name coloring books.

Poetic justice, ne?

Me being curious, and finding this absolutely hysterical (OK, I was 
standing in the isle screaming; I admit it), I picked up two: the 
famous _The Legend of Rah and the Muggles_ and _Larry and Lilly 
Potter: More Than Just Friends_.  They didn't have any copies of 
_Larry Potter and His Best Friend Lilly_, more's the pity.  There 
appear to be four books in what Stouffer calls the "Larry Potter 
Storybooks," of which three were there; I only picked up the one, not 
feeling like spending more than two dollars.

The letters (TM) are used all over both covers liberally.  These were 
published in 2001, but their purported dates of previous publication 
are displayed prominently inside the front covers.  The inside blurb 
for _Rah_ refers to "the real Muggles" more than once.  All very 
defensive, IMHO.

The books are very cheaply printed.  The binding on _Rah_ is 
terrible, very flimsy, and has glue strands hanging off of it.  The 
interior pages have very large margins, and very large type, so that 
253 paqes contain what in a normal book might be 75 pages worth of 
text.  _Larry and Lilly_ isn't any better, but it's meant for very 
young children (more on that next paragraph), and isn't significantly 
worse than most hard-bound books for small children with only 20 
pages.  The printing itself is adequate - no blurring or smearing, 
which I have seen in very cheap printings.  I've seen vanity 
printings that were better, though.

I can't see, even assuming that she is perfectly honest in her 
statements about the "Larry & Lilly" books, how she could imagine any 
confusion between them and our beloved canon.  These books are meant 
for _very_ small children.  The format is one or two sentences of 
text on the left-hand page, with an illustration on the right (one of 
which is repeated twice in the book, for reasons which must remain a 
mystery).  Moreover, her Larry Potter resembles early versions of 
Andy from _Toy Story_ more than he does JKR's Harry, or Grandpre's 
depiction of him.  (He certainly doesn't look like Radcliffe, 
either.)  I'm guessing from the illustrations that L&L are meant to 
be about eight, but the intended audience is  clearly meant to be 
children just learning to read.

I am unsure what the intended reading level for _Rah_ is.  Stouffer 
uses an awful lot of long and complex words, but her sentence 
structure is artificially simple.  (I might haul out my old "Reading 
in the Secondary Classroom" textbook and actually do a grade level 
calculation on it sometime if I have the time.)  I haven't finished 
reading the book, but the moral - "War is Bad" - is hammered home 
about once a chapter.  So far, she's very good at character 
_description_, but less so at character _development_.

There are interior illustrations, also done by Stouffer, several 
depicting the Muggles themselves.  I scanned and uploaded one to the 
Files area (Mods, please hit me with an "Expelliarmus!" if that was a 
no-no - I'll gladly remove it) so everyone can see what Stouffer's 
Muggles look like.  Suffice it to say that (a) she's not consistent 
about what size they are, and (b) Petunia, Dudley, and Vernon would 
have a hard time indeed fitting in.

If it is okay to post the files, at least temporarily, I also scanned 
the front covers of both books and one illustration of Larry & Lilly 
- let me know if anyone wants to see them.  (I think the front cover 
of _Rah_ was in the coverage of the case, but the overuse of (TM) is 
amusing enough to see again.  I haven't seen an abuse of the 
trademark this bad since TSR tried to trademark the word "Nazi." 
(Oops, did I just Godwin's Law my own thread?))

The things you find looking for cheap candles . . .

-- 
  - Boggles, aka J. C. B. Ramon			boggles at earthlink.net
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