continues to drop significantly as children get older.... One Harry Potter novel every few years is not enough to reverse the decline in reading.This goes back to adults not reading. Great books aren't enough; studies show that if adults don't read, kids don't read.
"Unless there's... an enthusiastic adult saying, 'Here's the next one' — it's not going to happen," said Nancie Atwell, the author of The Reading Zone.
After Harry Potter
All is not lost. 3/4 of Harry Potter readers are "interested in reading other books":Fifth grade boys shouted with enthusiasm for the "Cirque du Freak" series, about a boy who becomes entangled with a vampire.Parents? Teachers? These young adult and children's books might tempt a Harry Potter reader. You'd enjoy them too--my parents did.
Mary Stewart
- A Walk in Wolf WoodTwo children go back in time to rescue a friendly werewolf.
- The Little Broomstick
A girl and a cat join a school for young magicians.
Susan Cooper
- The Dark Is Rising series
Great characters, good/evil, coming of age/into power, and Arthurian legend tie-in. A film version of The Dark is Rising is due out in October.
Alan Garner
- The Weirdstone of Brisingamen
Wonderful myth-based children's story
Gerald Durrell
- The Talking Parcel
Children and a parrot try to save the magical land of Mythologia from marauding Cockatrices.
- My Family and Other Animals
His animal/travel books are wonderful.
L Frank Baum
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Lucy Boston
- the Green Knowe books
Frances Hodgson Burnett- Everyone knows The Secret Garden
- What about The Lost Prince
Roald Dahl
- James and the Giant Peach
Madeleine L'Engle
- A Wrinkle in Time series
Andre Maurois
- Fattypuffs and Thinifers
A magical land divided between two countries that don't get along.
Norton Juster- The Phantom Tollbooth
A pun-filled book about a war between words and numbers.
Robin McKinley
- Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
- The Blue Sword
Jane Yolen
- Wizard's Hall
One of JK Rowling's influences
Beverly Nichols
- The Stream That Stood StillFor younger kids:
JP Martin
- Uncle
Sheer silliness. An elephant who lives in a castle.
Tove Jansson
- the Moomin books
James Howe
- Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery
For teens:Salman Rushdie
- Haroun and the Sea of Stories
A screwed-up fairytale
Ann Maxwell
- Fire Dancer series
- Timeshadow Rider
TH White
- The Sword in the Stone
Mark Twain
- A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's CourtFictionalized mythologies:
Roger Lancelyn Green
- Robin Hood
- King Arthur
- Tales of the Greek Heroes
- Tales of Ancient Egypt
- The Tale of Troy
Unfortunately, I bet my list doesn't address this:
Neema Avashia... said it was rare for the Harry Potter series to draw reluctant readers to books.... "Harry Potter isn’t really where my kids are coming from." She noted that her class is 85 percent nonwhite....
12 Comments:
How about Ursula LeGuin and Laurence Yep? They've written YA books with non-white characters.
I've noticed that a lot of (all?) the YA books that do have non-white characters deal with Serious Issues, on par with ethnic literary fiction. No wonder some kids don't find reading exactly fun.
Ursula Le Guin's a great suggestion. I left her Earthsea books off my list because The Tombs of Atuan gave me nightmares :) But now you mention it, I remember I loved a bunch of her stories.
I've never read Laurence Yep. Interesting mini-bio:
Laurence Yep... grew up feeling somewhat separate from others, because he lived in an African American neighborhood but went to school in Chinatown, in another part of the city. In those years he read science fiction and fantasy books, because, he says, in those books "children leave the everyday world and go to a strange place where they have to learn a new language and new customs."
I don't know how one teaches enjoyment. But the OECD (2002) found that "reading enjoyment is more important for children’s educational success than their family’s socio-economic status."
In the UK a national literacy drive may have hurt kids' enjoyment of reading, by focusing on testable skills instead of enjoyment. That seems to contradict the Stanford researcher quoted in the NYT:
Some reading experts say that urging kids to read fiction in general might be a misplaced goal. “If you look at what most people need to read for their occupation, it’s zero narrative,” said Michael L. Kamil, a professor of education at Stanford University. “I don’t want to deny that you should be reading stories and literature. But we’ve overemphasized it,” he said. Instead, children need to learn to read for information, Mr. Kamil said, something they can practice while reading on the Internet, for example.
That quote floored me. Reading fiction has a lot of value other than gaining job skills. And besides, kids get plenty of practice doing internet-style reading.
'children need to learn to read for information' - well, yes, in the sense that they need to understand what they're reading, but reading comprehension skills can be acquired while reading fiction, and that way they learn lots about myths, history etc in a fun, imaginative way.
A 'zero narrative' world sounds horrible, but it'll never to come to pass, not as long as people like to make sense of their lives by thinking of them as having a beginning, a middle and an end, and like to speculate about the lives of others.
The "zero narrative" statement is weird. Constructing and interpreting narrative is essential to professional life. Perhaps he meant it in a more narrow sense.
Much of his research is in "Reading for understanding" with some publications on reading in the sciences. If that's informing his statement, that's a different perspective. Even so, there's a big difference between rambly low-information-content lab reports and "overemphasizing" narrative. I would say these examples of unclear or misleading science writing are poor narrative, not lack of information. If anything, some of those examples show an author who does understand information and carefully uses narrative to gloss over details.
But my main concern was that he seemed to say fiction should be deprecated. Fiction clearly teaches reading skills, but it also has a larger value in engaging the imagination--something that's crucial even in the sciences.
Also Half magic by Edward Eager
The Phoenix and the Carpet(etc) by E. Nesbit
Witches by Roald Dahl
Henrietta's House by Elizabeth Goudge
and The Land of Green Ginger - though I'm blanking on the author.
Having said that, I've been spectacularly unsuccessful in getting my children to read these books, even when I buy them new with more modern covers. (And I'm sure in my soul that they'd enjoy Susan Cooper if I could just get them over the threshold.)
So I'm not sure that a general love of Harry Potter necessarily transfers itself into an interest in other magical books.
ooh, nice! I don't know Edward Eager or the Green Ginger book (Noel Langley?), and Witches is a Dahl I don't know.
I'm not sure that a general love of Harry Potter necessarily transfers itself into an interest in other magical books.
I wonder that too. I remember resisting the Susan Cooper books, but once I succumbed they were like nothing else I'd read--magical, but not like Tolkien; more real. I may have been just the right age (9 or 10), so the kids in the books weren't too far ahead of me.
One reason I don't love the Harry Potter books is, I grew up on books that drew more on myths. I wonder if the Harry Potters don't lead naturally to other books because they don't have those mythic connections. They seem so separate from that tradition, and so much of the magic is sort of childish. It's not moon-magic like Alan Garner, or King Arthur like Susan Cooper.
I hate the says this but I love The dark Is Rising. BUT... It is heavily flawed.
I have absolutely no clue why Susan did it but every book about the kids is horrible in a bad Hardy Boys way.
Every book about Will is superb unique and classic so you wind up with threes good books out of the five.
Hey I am just being honest. I still got these books somewhere in the pile.
I agree, Will is the central figure in the Cooper books. He's a great young protagonist and has a coming-into-power struggle, an interesting family, and a great older-younger relationship with Merriman. But I enjoyed the 2 Simon-Jane-Barney books too; they're good myth-based adventures.
I would start the series with The Dark is Rising. To me, that's the real "coming of age/coming into power" book that best introduces Will, Merriman, the Light, and the Dark. BTW, did you know a film version of The Dark is Rising is due out in October? Wikipedia has more info. Maybe the film will stir interest in the books.
I say to start with The Dark is Rising, but the first Susan Cooper I read was Silver on the Tree. It's the last book in the series, and it has all the kids (Will and Bran off on their quest; Simon, Jane, and Barney holding the fort). And I still fell in love with the series.
"and a great older-younger relationship with Merriman"
I actually found "a" slash story about this.
Just one but um Oh My!
Oh no. Oh no no no. No.
WHY do people do this stuff to children's books? ... no, I don't even want to go there.
Yech. Thanks SO much for planting that thought :p
Wow, that's a hell of an awesome list.
Yes, I think so too :)
I'm seeing more and more "post-Harry" lists in blogs and newspapers. Maybe I'll post a roundup.
BTW, I just read your "The Bacon of the Undead", and I'm fascinated by the bacon.
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