NYT Booklist

[plinsenmayer]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C6993
From: plinsenmayer
Subject: Re: NYT Booklist
Reply To: [Yahoo! #6987] Hey Penny-an article on the NYT Booklist
Date: 8/16/00 10:56 am  (ET)

Hi:

Yes! Yes! Yes, yes, yes, yes!!!! (whooping noises) --- go Salon.com!!

I hate that McGrath person -- what a complete hypocrite as Heidi pointed
out in a later message.

I do think a childrens' bestseller list is a good thing for many of the
reasons cited in this article, but I do not believe that HP should be
relegated SOLELY to that list. I do view it as "relegated" too btw. If
they want to have a childrens' bestseller list & include HP (perhaps SS &
CoS only), fine. But, GoF is *not* a 9-12 book (IMO).

Sales figures just do not support this move on the part of the NY Times. I
hope Scholastic can figure out a way to recast the books. This ought
to be easy enough to do given that JKR herself has said time & time &
time again that she didn't write the books with any target audiece
in mind. Scholastic just messed up at the beginning by classifying
SS as "childrens" and not reviewing whether it ought to change the
classification in light of sales figures & demographics of the buying
public. That *ought* to be good enough for the NY Times, if they're
playing by their stated rules (that it's up to a book's publisher to
classify it as "adult" or "childrens"). I suspect that's a line of
garbage & they'll think of all sorts of groundless arguments why they
shouldn't reinstate the HP books on the main bestseller list.

Penny