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O adversário mais forte de Harry Potter

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Tradução: Frede_Potter
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Farber, Celia. “Harry Potter’s Toughest Foe,” Sunday Herald (Glasgow), October 17, 1999

THE gaggle of pre-adolescent girls waited impatiently in the New York book store. “There she is,” one of them shouted, pointing towards a staircase. Screams pierced the air. Hundreds of girls clenched their fists and just screamed straight out, jumping up and down, trying to climb on to the stairwell where a trim, blonde author began signing the first of some 2,000 books.

“Oh my God! Oh My God!” One of the girls screamed, while another turned around and fell to her knees, hollering, “She smiled at me. JK Rowling smiled at me!” Paul McCormick, an employee of the book store, Book Revue, the largest independent bookstore in New York state, watched bemused.

“This is like Beatlemania,” he said, as he begun to usher kids and parents up the staircase. Those at the very front of the line had in some cases slept in their cars outside the bookstore in Huntington, New York. Others had shown up at dawn, even though the store doesn’t open until 9.30am, and the author who created Harry Potter wasn’t scheduled to appear in the store until 7.30 pm.

By late afternoon, the line outside stretched for several long city blocks, with hundreds and hundreds of people bundled up in heavy coats to stay warm in the windy, cold October night.

Rowling and Harry Potter have become something of a publishing phenomenon in the United States, which is why the author is embarking on a gruelling promotional tour. The New York store was one of three she was due to visit that day, which also included a spot on the network Rosie O’Donnell chat show. But the success – five million books sold in America so far, millions more almost certain to follow – attracted controversy in the country’s heartland and in the south, where Rowling’s themes of paganism, wizardry, and blood-drinking are not going appreciated.

The Potter craze has stirred up a deeply embedded divide, between, essentially, the Christian right and liberal mainstream of America.

It began in South Carolina, where parents last week asked the board of education to remove the books, about Harry’s adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the classroom reading list due to their “violent and occult” themes. Similar protests were heard throughout the week from Minnesota, Georgia, and even California.

“The books are written in a very amusing way,” concedes David Williamson, the South Carolina father of a nine-year-old boy, who started the protest movement against the books. “But those underlying tones of death, murder, and the occult is what scares us. Especially here in the States with all the violence we’ve had in our schools. A lot of that has been linked to kids getting involved in the occult.”

Williamson’s son, he said, used his own money to buy his first Harry Potter book, and one night while he was sleeping, his parents got a call from some friends who wanted to alert them to the book’s contents. They got the book from his room, read it, and were horrified.

“It’s too violent,” says Williamson. “There were parts that really scared us, and we didn’t want him to lose his innocence.” Williamson cites a few details that particularly disturbed him, such as one character in the book saying that death, to the organised mind, is “the next great adventure”. “There is a character introduced as ‘Nearly Headless Nick’, a ghostly entity covered in blood and people drinking unicorn blood. It just continues on and on and on. We are not asking for this book to be banned. I don’t mind if it’s in the library. I just don’t want the teacher in the school to be reading it to my son.”

Williamson asked both the teacher and the principle of his son’s school to stop reading the books in class, which they refused to do, saying that would be unfair to the other children. Instead, the boy now leaves the classroom and sits in the library while the Potter books are being read aloud. And he’s not alone. “We had 12 to 18 parents go to our meeting with the state board of education,” said Williamson, “and I know of at least five or six children who are leaving their classrooms at this time, while the Potter books are being read.”

Rowling herself refuses to apologise for the content of her books. “I have yet to meet a single child who’s told me that they want to be, you know, a satanist, or are particularly interested in the occult because of the book,” she said.

American publishers are, perhaps unsurprisingly, supportive. “There are five million Americans who have bought these books and obviously love them,” said John Mason, associate director of marketing for scholastic books. “We’re sorry that there are a few people that don’t like them. That is obviously their right.”

MANY of the children at the Huntingdon store signing were sporting lightning bolt tattoos on their foreheads, and others were dressed in wizard costumes. The store’s owner was personally walking around the endless line, trying to convince people to go home, since there was no way Rowling would get to everybody, especially not those at the end of the line. But nobody budged. Instead they took turns going to a nearby deli and buying cups of hot chocolate to stay warm.

It was the same scene earlier in the day at a Manhattan bookstore, and then again at a small bookstore in Port Washington, New York. Hundreds and hundreds of people lining the streets, clutching their books. “This is hot stuff,” one mother gushed outside the Dolphin bookshop in Port Washington. “You’ve got parents fighting with their own kids over whose turn it is to read the books. Kids love it, parents love it. It’s amazing.”

Johnny, an 11-year-old resident of Port Washington, has read the three books a total of 25 times, and says coolly that Rowling has replaced his previous favourite author, Roald Dahl. “She is much better,” he says. “She is much more creative than Dahl.”

“My son turned off the TV so he could read this book,” said another mother of an 11-year-old boy. “That is unheard of.”

Outside the Port Washington bookstore, the cultural divide was palpable between the people in the queue and the religious parents who want the books banned. There was not a single protester in sight.

“This whole row is completely ridiculous,” scoffed Annabelle Clayton, who reads the books together with her eight-year-old daughter.

“We belong to a Baptist church, but this kind of stuff is part of childhood. It’s part of our heritage, these kinds of mysteries, and it goes back way before Christianity.”

“There are states in this country where they don’t teach evolution anymore,” one father muttered. “Somebody’s always upset about something in South Carolina,” said Rob Ginsberg, a father of two. “I’ve not met a single parent who doesn’t love these books. How could you not love a series of books that have your kids reading for hours on end?”

Lenora Heller, a mother of three standing outside the Huntington bookshop, agreed: “Look, this book is all about good against evil. Harry Potter represents all that is good. It’s as simple as that.”

Her nine-year-old daughter chimes in: “I’m reading a book about dragons. They’re not real. And I don’t think they’re real.”

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Pottermania – Foco – Perfil – J.K. Rowling

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Tradução: Frede_Potter
Revisão: {patylda}

McGinty, Stephen. “Pottermania – Focus – Profile – J.K. Rowling ,” The Sunday Times (UK), October 17, 1999

Thousands of Americans are queueing to meet JK Rowling, the single mum who conjured up apprentice magician Harry Potter from inside an Edinburgh cafe. She is the only author to take the top three slots on the New York Times bestseller list at the same time. Stephen McGinty reports on literary wizardy.

The queue began before dawn in Manhattan. On the pavement outside Books of Wonder, businessmen stamped their feet, mothers sipped coffee from flasks and the children yawned sleepily. At 11am, a long black Lincoln pulled up. The 800-strong crowd cheered as JK Rowling climbed from the car.

It was her third appointment of the day. At 7am the author of the Harry Potter novels was a guest of Katie Couric, the presenter of the Today Show, America’s most popular breakfast programme. Two hours later Rosie O’Donnell, the actress and chat-show presenter was applying the same warm treatment. By mid-morning Rowling had already been beamed into the living rooms of 10m Americans.

At Books of Wonder, however, the change in Rowling’s status from just another famous author doing a book tour to global phenomenon was more obvious. Rowling, in a black top and grey slacks, smiled and laughed with her army of young and not-so-young fans. She signed more than 1,000 copies of her new novel, The Prisoner of Azkaban, in just two hours.

There to record her every squiggle were photographers, a camera crew and dozens of journalists. “The atmosphere was electric,” said Jennifer Lavonier, the store’s manager. “Men and women and children were all delighted to get their copies signed. It’s the nearest I’ve ever seen to Beatlemania with books.”

THE comparison rings true. Just as the Beatles stunned America when they stole the top three places in the American music charts in the 1960s, so Rowling has rocked the literary establishment. For the first time in history the top three slots in the New York Times bestseller list are taken up by the same author: Rowling.

The United States is just wild about Harry Potter. Each night millions of children drift off to sleep to the tales of the 10-year-old apprentice magician and his friends at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. To meet the frenzied demand for the three existing Potter books, six printing presses across the country run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Potter has also been granted another accolade: a Time magazine cover.

To date 8.2m copies of Rowling’s golden threesome – Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – have been sold in America. Yet the first book was published just over a year ago in September 1998. Then, a signing session by Rowling at Books of Wonder drew fewer than 100 fans.

Last Monday Rowling launched a three-week, coast-to-coast tour, a round of signings, interviews and television appearances that would exhaust a president. A trip to see The Lion King on Broadway on Wednesday night was a short break before two television shows and three bookshop signings the next day.

On the Today Show Rowling admitted the phenomenon was a little hard to believe. When she began writing the first book her wildest dream extended only to having it published. “When you imagine what will happen you think of seeing the book in print and maybe doing well. Nothing could have prepared me for what has happened.”The response in America has left her stunned. “In my wildest fantasy I could not have imagined anything like this. I could not come even close.”

Despite the crowds, the phenomenal sales of her books and the proliferation of websites dedicated to Harry Potter, not everyone is captivated with her bespectacled hero. Some American publishers are considering banding together to insist that The New York Times bar the books from their bestsellers list. They say the books are children’s stories and ineligible. The real reason is professional jealousy: they just can’t compete.

Another twist to Rowling’s extraordinary celebrity in America came when the board of education in South Carolina agreed to review whether Harry Potter should be permitted in schools after a group of parents complained. Elizabeth Mounce, one of the parents calling for the ban, argued that the books “have a serious tone of death, hate, lack of respect and sheer evil”. The American Library Association reported that there had also been attempts in New York and Michigan to remove the books from schools.

Again there are parallels with the Beatles. Their records were burnt at mass rallies throughout the Bible Belt in 1967 after John Lennon imprudently claimed the band were “more popular than Jesus”.

Rowling defends her work with confidence. On NBC television’s Today Show she said: “If you’re writing about evil, you genuinely have a responsibility to show what that means and that’s why I’m writing them the way I’m writing them.”

Her latest book is considered darker than the previous two, with characters called dementors, who suck up souls, and an evil wizard, Sirus Black, who tries to kill Potter. Yet she has already explained that in her next book a popular central character will die. “I am writing about someone who is evil. And rather than make him a pantomime villain, the only way to show how evil it is to take a life is to kill someone the reader cares about.”

Pressure from the Christian right is something Rowling’s American publishers can easily withstand, cushioned as they are by the tens of millions of dollars the books pull in. They hold her work in the highest of regard. Judy Corman, vice-president of corporate communications with the publishing house Scholastic Press, said: “They will be seen as modern classics of children’s literature for years to come, along with books like Alice in Wonderland, The Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia.”

ROWLING’s staggering success can be seen when compared with other great children’s works. The Lord of the Rings, published in 1954, has sold 50m copies in the intervening 45 years. But neither JRR Tolkien nor CS Lewis enjoyed such swift success. To date there are 17m copies of the Harry Potter books in print in more than 30 languages, with the latest novel outselling Stephen King and John Grisham in Britain. Only Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs, has sold more copies in Britain this year.

Rowling’s agent, Christopher Little, said never before had an author sold so many copies so quickly. “In publishing history we’ve never seen anything like Harry Potter. The works of Tolkien and CS Lewis might be comparable in tone but their success was built over many years. The word of mouth on Harry has been like lightning round a playground.

“The only comparable book has actually been Peter Mayle’s A Year in Provence because word of mouth made the book a huge success. The key to Harry’s success is that it has been truly global.”

Rowling is thought to have made about #4m from royalties but the sale of the movie rights and her future earnings are likely to dwarf that. Some predict that in the next 10 years she could rake in #30m. Asked to comment, Little said the figure sounded “dramatically on the low side”.

The sales have also been good for Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury. The firm announced earlier this month that its gross profits had risen by 34% to #3.2m, and its share price has more than trebled in the past 12 months. Harry Potter has cast a spell over its balance sheet.

Giles Gordon, a literary agent with Curtis Brown, agrees Rowling will become incredibly rich. A father of two little girls, Lucy, 8, and Clare, 6, who will not go to sleep without hearing a few pages of Harry Potter’s adventures, he believes the appeal is old-fashioned storytelling. “You read it aloud and it’s not the best-written book, but it’s not trendy and written with a social conscience. It’s absolutely backward-looking, but very absorbing.”

Today Rowling is 5,000 miles and several million pounds from a poverty stricken single mother, an image interviews and profiles endlessly replay. It is true that Rowling started writing the novels while unemployed and worked on drafts in Nicolson’s, an Edinburgh cafe, while her daughter, now five, slept in her pushchair. Yet Rowling was university educated and had middle-class parents. She says the image of the “poor girl made good” is beginning to become irritating.

Despite her wealth she continues to live quietly in Edinburgh and avoids the limelight unless called on to promote her work. While she has had the occasional fan hanging around outside her home, so far she has not attracted the stalkers who have dogged writers such as Stephen King and Patricia Cornwell.

She appears shy and quiet to the Scottish literary establishment, although friends insist she is anything but. Rebecca de la Hey of Bloomsbury, who has known her for several years, insists she is neither. “The money has not changed her – she’s just got even busier. She’s still very good fun and incredibly charming.”

Rowling admits that her life at the moment is a touch schizophrenic. As the author admitted to Couric: “I have a very weird life at the moment. Half my life is exactly as it was in the past. I spend my time doing housework, looking after my daughter and writing novels. You could describe it as dull. Then suddenly I come to America and it’s wonderful. The number of people at the signings, the interviews and publicity is enough to make my head spin.”

HER profile will only increase in the United States. One factor will be the release of the first Harry Potter movie in the next couple of years. Steven Spielberg has expressed a keen interest in directing and Warner Brothers, the film’s backers, are already planning a theme park.

Despite earlier reports that the film was to be “Americanised” the feature is now expected to be made in Britain. This week the government swung behind plans for a nationwide search of Britain’s schools for a suitable boy to play the part of Harry.

Until the movie is released the American public will clamour for each new instalment of the Potter saga. Rowling plans to write seven books – one a year. They will be awaited eagerly. This year tens of thousands of parents bought copies of the latest novel through the internet from Britain, two months before its American release.

While a small rump of the American population may fret over the “satanic” elements of Potter’s magic, most teachers are simply delighted that someone is persuading children to read again.

As Jennifer Lovenier, the manager at Books of Wonder, says: “In an age of the DVD, video games and the internet it takes a strong kind of magic to get so many kids to pick up a book. I think we all owe JK Rowling something for that.”

CHARMED LIFE OF THE FIRST LADY OF FANTASY

1966: Born in Chepstow, Wales; educated at a comprehensive in the Forest of Dean and at Exeter University.

1990: First gets idea for Harry Potter while stuck on a train between London and Manchester. She worked for two years with Amnesty International before completing a course in teaching English as a foreign language in Manchester.

1991-1994: Spends three years teaching English in Portugal and marries a Portuguese television journalist. Begins making notes on the first Harry Potter book.

1994: Daughter Jessica is born. Four months later Rowling leaves her husband and moves to Edinburgh to be near her sister, Di.

1996: Received #8,000 Scottish Arts Council grant, which she spent on childcare to allow her to finish her first novel.

1997: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone first published by Bloomsbury. Sales quickly reach 50,000 in hardback.

Sept 1998: Philosopher’s Stone published in America.

Dec 1998: The Chamber of Secrets wins the equivalent of the children’s Booker, The Smarties Prize.

July 8 1999: The Prisoner of Azkaban is published in Britain. In first two days it outsells Hannibal, selling 68,159 copies. The book goes on to sell more than 500,000 copies.

Sept 8 1999: The Prisoner of Azkaban is published in America, triggering phenomenal sales. Steven Spielberg reported to be keen to direct a Harry Potter film.

Oct 4 1999: Harry Potter makes the cover of Time magazine.

Oct 9 1999: Rowling embarks on a three-week tour of America, having sold 8.2m copies of her books in the US and more than 17m worldwide.

Oct 13 1999: Parents in South Carolina disturbed by “evil” in Rowling’s book.

Oct 14 1999: Rowling appears on Today show and the Rosie O’Donnell show in New York.

[Ed. — Cannot re-confirm title or date at Newspaper website]

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J.K. Rowling responde as perguntas de estudantes em uma escola de Montclair

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Tradução: Pituh 2
Revisão: {patylda}

McGarrity, Mark. “Harry Potter’s creator meets her public: Author J.K.Rowling answers questions from students at a school in Montclair,” The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ), October 16, 1999

J.K. Rowling is a literary phenom.

The three books of her Harry Potter children s novel series are currently Nos. 1, 2 and 3 on both the Wall Street Journal and New York Times fiction best-seller lists, where the first book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” has spent 42 weeks. The previous record-holder for children s novels, E.B. White s 1952 classic, “Charlotte’s Web,” made best-seller lists for only three weeks.

The Harry Potter series tell the story of an 11-year-old who was orphaned as an infant and grows to discover that he is a wizard born of wizard parents.

Earlier this week, the British author visited the Montclair Kimberley Academy in Montclair, where she gave a reading, signed books and answered questions prepared by pupils from various grades. It was the only school stop on Rowling s current North America book-signing tour.

Some of the questions and Rowling s answers were as follows:

Q. Rebeccah McCarthy asked: “How did you come up with the names of the characters?”

A. Rowling (pronounced “Rolling”) said about two-thirds of the names are invented, “like Quidditch and Hagrid.” The others are names that she collects. “Often they turn up in my books,” she said, noting that Dursley the last name of Harry’s aunt and uncle is the name of an actual town in England. “Just say the word to yourself. Doesn’t it sound dull and forbidding?” Rowling gave the name to the phlegmatic and boorish aunt and uncle who take Harry Potter in after his wizard parents are killed by the evil Voldemort.

Q. Marshall Paulson asked: “Were you inspired by a particular author when you were a child?”

A. Rowling said she loved the books of E. Nesbit and wondered if anybody in the crowded audience knew of her work. Nobody did. (Edith Nesbit, who died in 1924, wrote “Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare,” “The Story of the Treasure Seekers,” and “The Wouldbegoods,” among other titles. Some of her books are available online via “The Gutenberg Project” at http://promo.net/pg/_authors/i-_nesbit_e_edith_.html) Rowling said she was also inspired by the books of C.S. Lewis and Paul Gallico.

Q. Julia Moore asked, “Are any of the stories based on personal memories or people you know?”

A. Rowling said, “Hermione is an exaggerated version of me when I was 11. But I was never that clever or annoying.” She also reported that Professor Snake [sic] is based on a chemistry teacher who hated her and made her life miserable. “The great thing about being a writer is that you have a chance to get back at those people who wronged you,” she said.

Q. Stephen Hughes asked, “Did you do any research on wizard customs?”

A. Rowling said she had always been interested in reading about folklore and legends of supernatural beings and experiences. “Although I don’t believe in it myself, we shouldn’t be too arrogant. Some of the stuff we believe in today will be considered rubbish in years to come, and things we think of as rubbish now will be considered true.” After she began writing the Harry Potters books, Rowling researched wizardry more thoroughly, she said.

Q. Tom Houseman asked, “Do you think that anyone in real life is truly wholly evil like Draco Malfoy and Voldemort?”

A. Rowling said, “My instinct is to say that probably not, but I can t answer that question without ruining the series for you.” Rowling said that in future books she will attempt to show “why Voldemort is who he is.”

Q. Danielle Rode asked, “How many times did you revise the Harry Potter books? What kinds of revisions did you make?”

A.: Rowling replied, “I rewrite a lot.” Openings give her the most trouble. “For “Sorcerer’s Stone I wrote 10 different opening chapters,” she said. “I’ve got them in a big box somewhere, I think.”

Q. Hal Garrity asked, “When did you decide that writing would be your main career?”

A. Rowling replied, “Writing was always my ambition. Here’s the recipe for life find what you do best and figure out a way to make it pay for you.” Rowling added that she s happiest when she’s writing nine hours a day.

Rowling also revealed that, when she decided to quit her teaching job and write full time, she announced her departure to her students, who were mainly from working-class backgrounds. She said one student asked her, “Miss, are you going on the dole?” “No,” she replied, “I’ve got another career.” There was a pause, and then another student asked, “Miss are you going to be a stripper?” Rather than give the boy detention on her last day there, she thanked him for the compliment.

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Autora de Harry Potter defende seu trabalho

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Tradução: Nani_Black
Revisão: {patylda}

“Harry Potter author defends her work,” Associated Press, October 14, 1999

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (AP) – The creator of Harry Potter, the fictional orphan who attends a school for wizards, says she writes honestly about evil in her three best-selling children’s novels that have become the targets of protest from some parents.

“I wasn’t going to pretend that an evil presence is a cardboard cutout and nobody gets hurt,” J.K. Rowling said Thursday in an interview on NBC television’s “Today” program. “If you’re writing about evil you genuinely have a responsibility to show what that means and that’s why I’m writing them the way I’m writing them.”

The British author’s books outline the education of young Harry, an English wizard at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, but some parents object to what they say are the books’ tone of death, hate, lack of respect and evil.

“There are those things in the book because I made a very conscious decision right at the beginning that I was writing about someone evil and I was not going to tell a lie,” Rowling said.

A dozen parents persuaded the South Carolina Board of Education earlier this week to review the books, which are suggested materials in public school reading programs. The board said it would look at the series but that it was up to local school boards to decide if the books were appropriate.

“I think they’re very moral books. The children the protagonists have to make their own choices. I see all three of them as innately good people,” Rowling said. “I see children as innately good unless they’ve been very damaged. That’s where I’m coming from.”

“People have an obvious right not to read my books. We all have a right to protect our children from anything that will hurt them,” Rowling said. “I personally don’t think at all that I’m hurting children.”

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Estudantes conhecem a verdadeira bruxa por trás da loucura de Harry Potter

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Tradução: Frede_Potter
Revisão: Adriana Snape

Brody, Leslie. “Students Meet the Real Wizard Behind the Harry Potter Craze,” The Record (Bergen-Hackensack, NJ), October 14, 1999

Swarms of giddy Montclair children tattooed their foreheads with purple lightning bolts Wednesday to honor their favorite boy wizard, Harry Potter, known for his signature scar.

They waved signs proclaiming “Potter Power!”

And they chanted “Harry Potter Rules” to welcome J. K. Rowling, the author of the wildly popular fantasy series, as she was driven to the door of the Montclair Kimberley Academy in a very down-to-earth Volvo.

So began the British writer’s first visit to a school in America, where children have been devouring her books just like their peers around the world. In an unprecedented publishing feat, Rowling’s three novels occupy the top three spots on The New York Times best- seller list.

Eight-year-old Jane Stanton of Verona couldn’t wait to see the red- headed writer. Jane said she used to struggle each night to finish her school reading assignments. Not anymore. Now she plows through Harry Potter books for more than an hour at a stretch.

“I never liked to read that much, and now I love it,” Jane said as she craned her neck to see Rowling. “This is like a dream, I’m so excited.”

Rowling’s series has been widely credited with drawing a generation of reluctant readers to the library. Demand for the books appears insatiable, and many parents say they are among the few new novels entire families can enjoy together.

For the uninitiated, Harry is a knobby-kneed orphan who discovers he has magical powers. The books follow his action-packed adventures at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The series consists of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets,” and “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.”

So far, 9.2 million copies of the three books have been printed in the United States alone. They are published in 28 languages.

In a jampacked assembly of more than 500 students in Grades 2 through 8, a relaxed and cheerfully irreverent Rowling seemed to cast a spell on her rapt audience.

Rowling said many characters come from her own past. Harry’s know- it-all friend, Hermione, is “an exaggerated version of me when I was 11, which I’m not very proud of. But I wasn’t that clever. Hermione is borderline genius. If I were that annoying, I would deserve a strangling.”

Professor Snape, she said, was based on a teacher she despised: “The great thing about becoming a writer is you can get revenge on everyone.”

After the first novel catapulted Rowling to celebrity two years ago, she couldn’t finish the second one.

“I never expected to get any personal publicity,” she said. “I froze and for about a month I couldn’t write. . . . I felt this wasn’t my private world anymore and I had a load of people looking over my shoulder saying, ‘That’s not a very good word, is it?’ It was a very scary feeling.”

The former French teacher began the series when she was a newly divorced mother and briefly on welfare. She says her earlier attempts at adult novels were “complete rubbish.”

Juliette Campbell, a 12-year-old from North Caldwell, said hearing about Rowling’s perseverance gave her confidence that she also could be a writer someday. “She got popular but it took her awhile to get there,” Juliette said. “She just kept going and going even though she didn’t know what would happen next.”

Harry’s fans say they relate to him because he faces so many of their own turmoils; he gets blamed for things he didn’t do, he has to struggle with classes and friendships, and he has to overcome his deepest fears.

Harry’s saga also appeals to children’s yearning for special powers all their own. “Most kids know there probably isn’t magic, but they like to think there is,” said John Dantzler, 9, of Montclair. “It would be really cool to be a wizard.”

Laura Lemaire, a fourth-grade teacher, said she is thrilled to see children so turned on to books, but hopes they won’t become dependent on the breathless pace of Harry’s exploits to stay interested in reading.

“One of the problems with Harry Potter books is there’s such instant gratification,” she said. “My hope is kids will be patient with books that don’t have such excitement.”

Several teachers at Montclair Kimberley said students’ eagerness to discuss the twists of Harry’s fortunes had inspired a more sophisticated level of discourse about characters and motivation, even after the school bell rings.

“They talk about Harry so much, he’s the 17th member of our class,” said Christine Lagatta, a fourth-grade teacher.

Rowling came to Montclair Kimberley to kick off the school’s annual book fair; a parent at the private school works for Rowling’s publisher. Her Friday afternoon visit to Books, Bytes and Beyond in Glen Rock is sold out; the store expects several hundred fans. That night she also will appear at Borders Books & Music in Livingston.

Highlights of the assembly will be available for viewing on MKA’s Web site beginning Monday at www.montclairkimberley.org.

Link to newspaper’s archive (fee for search)

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