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Two weeks ago today, my children stayed up till well after midnight to take part in a social event which will be earmarked by history as the denouement of a publishing phenomenon: dressed in old university gowns and carrying wands; one wearing an emerald silk shirt and the other bearing a lightening scar and drawn in spectacles, they headed across the road to our local, independent bookshop for a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows launch party. We duly picked up the book and as soon as we got home again, the boys went to bed and I started reading - a rattling good read… but the instances pointed out in the links below did not go unnoticed.

The popularity of the Harry Potter books means that they will become a focal point for many issues pertaining to children’s books, particularly now the series is complete and a critique can encompass the whole body of work. We already have the beginnings of some stimulating discussions. I read with interest Shen Book’s exploration of Harry Potter as a multicultural character, part of their Crossing Cultural Borders series – and also really enjoyed Emily Jiang’s witty reduction of the Deathly Hallows plot to a Haiku summary… if you haven’t read the book yet, don’t click here! There has been some in-depth discussion of J.K. Rowling’s use of cultural stereotyping: it is worth reading what Debbie Reese and Educating Alice have to say, as well as the comments to their posts, which are equally thought-provoking. Also, (more…)

Look for my review of the book in Friday's Variety. (I hope. I'm still writing it!)

  No spoilers here . . . Book 7 starts with some shocking events.  Harry learns more about Dumbledore's history.  Things get a little less exciting by page 300 (or maybe I was just getting tired because it was 6:30 in the morning a

I've created my first poll, relating to Potter mania and the Deathly Hallows.

Yay! (I love blogging. I love learning how to do these simple things and having fun with it. )

So Bota, bota, bota! Or, in English, vote!

But if you haven't yet gotten the book, while u wait:

I am eagerly awaiting the 7th book, HP and the Deathly Hallows.

My 10-year-old friend Nicky is the quintessential bribable reader. When I went shopping with his mom and older sister recently, Nicky patiently spent several contented hours in a corner of a shoe department, burrowing into The Titan’s Curse, the latest volume in Rick Riordan’s Olympian-themed Percy Jackson series. Nicky’s mom had sagely bought this hefty tome for him in anticipation of our shopping spree.

For Nicky’s generation, multicultural includes imaginary worlds. Brought up on Harry Potter and undaunted by huge page numbers, he loves books in series. “The Lionboy series [by Zizou Corder] is one of my favorites,” he emailed me. “It’s about a boy who got scratched by a leopard when he was a baby. Ever since then he has been able to speak with cats. After his parents were kidnapped his journey takes him all over the world, including his native continent, Africa. He soon finds out that it’s very hard to get 5 circus lions from France to Africa at the same time he’s trying to save his parents from a mysterious corporation before they get brainwashed.”

Nicky will be busy with Deathly Hallows for the next few weeks, of course, but until he gets hooked on a series, how does he decide what books to read? “This might sound weird, but I usually choose a book by its cover. If the cover looks interesting, I read the summary.” Nicky promises to glance up from his latest read from time to time to comment again for PaperTigers on books he loves. Meanwhile, for a list of series books for kids, click here. And here, for Stephen King’s lovely goodbye to Harry Potter.

Here's the cover art for the new front cover of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I found it over at ShelfTalker (a lovely blog thanks to the folks at Publisher's Weekly). My first reaction is that Harry is playing tennis--he's just tossed his ball into the air to serve an ace.

But wait-here's the full cover as it wraps around the book.



It's an odd assortment of images. The curtains at each end make it look like a stage play. The arched structure in the background looks Roman, and like a stage set. The orange sky looks both uplifting, like dawn, and troubling, like rampant fire. The dementer (or inferi? or is it Lord Voldemort with red eyes?) [ed. OKAY, it's official, it's Lord Voldemort] on the left seems to be reacting to something other than Harry, not threatening Harry. And Harry's arm in the air still seems ridiculous.

I wonder what the splintered wood in the foreground is--it seems incongruous, unrelated to the curtains or the stone arches. And are the shadows in the background a throng of observers, spectators? They add to the feeling that this is "staged."

I wish the characters were relating to each other or something in the picture. And I wish that Daniel Radcliffe's image hadn't worked it's way into the GrandPre vision of Harry.

I think this cover will grow on me, though. I like the orange vibrancy.



And there's this--the book cover to be released in the UK.



Harry looks like he has buck teeth (maybe we do need the Daniel Radcliffe version after all!). Hermione looks like a floozy. And Ron's red hair isn't (red). And they, too, are reacting to something outside the cover. (Or have they been sucked into a vault at Gringott's?) Perhaps that's a stylish innovation, but it doesn't work for me.

So I'm happier with the "American" cover art.

And I can't wait to read the books. Seeing the cover art is exciting. It makes the book's imminent appearance all that more real.

It's beautiful.

The link is here.