Some people have critisized her for advancing the level of
violence and serious issues in each of her successive
Harry Potter books. I think what she has done has planned not only seven books that follow the
adolescence of
Harry Potter, but the
developmental needs of growing readers. A young child, who is
cognitively and
socially developed enough to understand only so much about the world, can start the first in the series and 'grow' with it. As each book develops more challenging aspects to understanding it, the readers are stretched to grasp it.
Also, they are following Harry in age (because each book happens to be just perfect reading for a child the same age as Harry is in that volume), so their interests, fears, typical-for-the-age-problems they face are mirrored in Harry. This is a
character who has become an
invisible friend for many, many, kids.
In a way, she's revived a form of
literature that was last seen (with enough quality to it to make it mainstream) with the
Laura Ingalls Wilder books (the
Little House on the Prairie series), which focused on the the growing lives of a famiy in prairieland, USA. Wilder's books were just as much
historical fiction and a window into viewing what life was like for children and adults of that time period as they were a
good story. All the books were based on her own history, and that of her family.
Rowling's books don't have any historical significance to them, they just tell a REALLY good story.
Let's not forget the immense value of really good
storytelling!!
Rowling deserves
recognition (which many have given her) for drawing out that part of us that demands good stories and defies whatever it has to in order to get them. Until
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone/Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was released, most children's and young adult books reflected an element of forced
moralization or lesson teaching to them that was pushed by the
powers that be, (our current
social climate, the grand forces of a national
education system, a nation with a
war on violence -anyone note the
oxymoron there?- and a
political and
religious system that deemed our
youth were
running wild). The end result was that
publishers were pressured into publishing books that had some '
moral,
educational or
civic' value to them. What happened was the storytelling got lost and the 'issues' became more important.
If we look hard enough (if we look at all) we find many 'issues', 'morals', and 'lessons' to be learned in Rowling's books. But it's not the
focus, it's a by-product of what happens when an author superbly crafts her characters, places them in real situations (real in the setting of the story) and masterfully tells the stories of what happens.
I think we could all, to paraphrase a quote from
Mrs. Weasly, "Take a leaf out of her book"!