Adult readers who are dismissive about Harry Potter

[psychic_serpent]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "holmesclan2002" 
<holmesclan2002 at y...> wrote:
> 
>     I am Melanie from Texas. My question is: Do any of you get 
> Attitude from literary types who "don't do Potter"?  I've been in 
> a ladies book group for 5 years...we're all friends. We read all 
> kinds of stuff. There is, however, a real bias against Harry 
> Potter books. The best I can tell is that the three most vocal 
> members feel that it is too pedestrian for their tastes.  All of 
> us are moms with teenagers. Two of these gals have genius progeny 
> who are ging to Yale and MIT respectively. One daughter recently 
> aced That's a score of 1600) her SAT test. I think there is a 
> belief that if these books appeal to the masses, they must be 
> somehow substandard. 

Oh, trust me, a person doesn't need to have genius progeny going to 
Yale and MIT to be dismissive of the Potter books.  My sister and 
sister-in-law were visiting on New Year's Day and were both 
mystified about how I could devote time to writing HP fanfiction, 
let alone why hundreds of adults traveled to Florida in July for a 
symposium on the Potter books.  My sister-in-law kept saying, 'Oh, 
they're ALL RIGHT...' (She never went to college and two of her 
three kids have flunked out of community colleges.)  And my sister 
mostly reads books on spirituality, despite the fact that she never 
goes to church (but she's considering converting to another 
denomination, go figure).  I tried to convince her that a number of 
authors have written very interesting books about the spirituality 
in the Potter books, but she remains unconvinced and they both think 
the HP books are just fluffy 'fun' (although my sister-in-law said 
she didn't really like OotP--guess it wasn't enough 'fun' for her).

I am fortunate that I can mention my involvement in Nimbus around 
people at my church and get into very interesting HP discussions 
there.  (The minister, director of music and my kids' Sunday School 
teacher are some of the people with whom I can discuss HP!  Yes, I 
know I go to the coolest church in the world--don't get me 
started.)  Perhaps after the PoA discussion, the naysayers in your 
group will see that there is a lot more under the surface of the 
books.  Good luck.

--Barb

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