Other Books

[Skimmel_98 at yahoo.com]

Original Yahoo! HPFG Header:
No: HPFGUIDX C529
From: Skimmel_98
Subject: Other Books
Date: 2/28/00 1:57 pm  (ET)

The NY Times has an interesting article in the Feb 28 issue. It seems
that many of the Potter fans have read and reread the Potter books to
the point of saturation and are crying for something else to carry them
over until book four comes out. There has been a big boom in Juvenile
Fantasy Books as a result. Sales of the Chronicles of Narnia series and
the Prydain series are way up as a result.

The books that are being recommended to "tide" the kids over until July:

Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
Prydain series - Lloyd Alexander
Holes - Louis Sachar
Redwall series - Jacques (?)
I capture the Castle - Dodie Smith
The Golden Compass - ?
Half Magic - Edward Gager (Last name?)
Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle.
The Wonderdul Wizard of Oz - Frank L. Baum

(Trivia question: The movie version of the Wizard of Oz was nominated
for Best Picture and probably would have won any other year. What was
the movie that won the academy award for Best Picture that year?)

I know the Prydain series (The Book of Three, The Black Cauldron, etc)
and the Narnia series pretty well but I don't know the others. (Wrinkle
in Time is next on my reading list.) But I've never really been tempted
to reread them. The kids in the NY Times story find them to be barely
adequate replacements for Harry. I've read each of them twice to myself
and am reading Prisoner of Azkaban aloud to my youngest.

Which brings us back to our old question: What is it about Harry Potter
books that arouses such passion? What does Rowling put in her books that
C.S. Lewis didn't that excites the reader? Or perhaps it goes the other
way. What did C.S. Lewis put in his book that Rowling left out that
"turns off" the reader?

(Trivia question answer : Gone with the Wind)