Sometimes hype works.

But time passes and the hyped thing sinks in memory, its day over. Other things endure long enough to become 'classics.' Some ruminations on the Potter phenom.

This will be somewhat incoherent--am still a tad tired. Last week was not good, but ended really well, with a school visit to Chadwick Academy in Rancho Palos Verdes.. The school is just as beautiful as it looks--it was first established as a posh boarding school many years ago. I went up there once as a fifth grader, when a friend and I (going ( Read more... )

I went to pinch hit as a sub today (hey, I desperately need that fifty smackeroos) and came home to zip through the bazillion posts gathered while I was gone. Stumbled to a halt when I came across this post by Charles Butler as the latest in the blog of a group of writers for kids, "An Awfully Big Blog Adventure."
( Read more... )

Cut, as most likely everyone who isn't a devoted fan is thoroughly sick of the subject by now. But this isn't a just a series of books, it's also a phenomenon, and how many of those do we experience in our lives?
( Read more... )

I suspect most who cruise this blog also cruise matociquala's, but still. Today she has some good stuff to say about craft and success, specifically:

Here's a secret. Once you reach a certain level of competence, books and stories sell because of what you do right, not because of what you don't do wrong. You want to talk about what J.K. Rowling does wrong ( Read more... )

A few days ago Mumpsimus asked what ought to be recommended to kids after they finish Potter ( Read more... )

How many people over the world are buried in their Potter book right now? Nothing like this in my experience (blah, blah, we all know that--nothing like it in anyone's experience) except maybe the sense of community and mutual excitement that we felt when the first Tolkien Society picnics happened, and we all came in costume and discussed the ( Read more... )