Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald - The Original Screenplay 1. NPR's Samantha Balaban produced the audio version of this story. And it's about magic in the same way and younger people." "Like Children of Blood and Bone, that's a new good book. "I've read other books about magic that are kind of similar, but in a different way," she says.
HARRY POTTER BOOK ART SERIES
Some recent titles, including Dread Nation by Justina Ireland and The Akata Witch series by Nnedi Okorafor, have been breakouts, grabbing kids' attention.īack at the History of Magic Exhibit - Kaitlyn Kruemmel is still heavily invested in her love of Harry Potter. "And, in fact, those are the kind of books that African-American children, for example, really are clamoring for."Īnd that's not to say that some series and books featuring diverse characters haven't done well. "What we don't see a lot of with diversity are books like Harry Potter, that are just pure fantasy," Horning says. Librarian Kathleen Horning, director of the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the University of Wisconsin, says things haven't really changed in the last 20 years. "As a Chinese girl growing up, didn't always see that direct experience of mine reflected in books and that's definitely something I want to see open up in the world."īut children's literature still has a long way to go when it come to diversity. "As an editor, I certainly am looking for books that will also reflect a myriad of identities," she says. "I love that there was this thread of very young people having the power to make a difference," Feldmann says.Īnd now Feldmann says she's working to make a difference through her editing. She says she connected to the series through the friendships she saw. One of those people is Kait Feldmann, 26, an associate editor at the Arthur A. "All of my editors now were people who had grown up with loving Harry Potter, and that love made like sparked this idea, 'I want to make books that will do that,' " Levine says. Levine acknowledges this, but says that the series did create a new generation of readers - and therefore writers, editors and other gatekeepers - of all backgrounds. Harry Potter's effects on children's literature The three main characters in the books are white, and while there are casual references to the ethnic backgrounds of some of the ancillary characters, the experience of the British boarding school - magic or not - is a fairly narrow one.
It appealed to a wide variety of readers, although it didn't reflect every reader. "It wasn't just like the two nerdy readers and you know the class. "Everybody wanted that next book," Levine says. They sold so well that The New York Times Book Review began printing a separate best-seller list for children's books - because of complaints that the Harry Potter books had pushed adult titles off the lists. Of course, his bet paid off - Harry Potter became a publishing phenomenon. "And I fought for it despite the fact that there wasn't an obvious immediate gratification in terms of business. This was just a great book," Levine says. "There was no market for hardcover children's fiction.
"As a little gay kid growing up, you know, and there isn't much that is explicitly gay in Harry Potter, but the idea of the goodness and rightness of who you are is not necessarily mirrored in society," Levine says.Īt that time, Levine says, children's literature really wasn't taken that seriously. Hidden Brain What Can A Personality Test Tell Us About Who We Are? Had the series existed when he was little, Levine says it "would have bee a huge thing in my life." But what I could relate to so strongly was this idea that maybe there's something inside of you that nobody else can see." "Even though I was not an orphan and I'm not English. "It was the fact that he was me," Levine says. He took it, read it on the plane and was immediately hooked. It was the last manuscript he received from the Bloomsbury publishing house. Levine found the manuscript at the book fair that day. "Once upon a time I was a 20 years younger man and I was walking around the Bologna Book Fair being very highfalutin and saying to each person that I was meeting with 'What I'm looking for are books that will stand the test of time, ' " Levine says.
Levine Books - he has some of his memorabilia.
Apparating across the pondĪrthur Levine is the editor who's responsible for bringing Harry Potter to the U.S. They read and re-read, pore over details, and never really get over them. But almost every person says the Harry Potter books are unique.