The magic of harry potter
I. Satyasree
Midnight,
June 21, 2003. A long wait of three years ends for millions of Harry’s fans all
over the world. Yes, she has done it again! Ms. J. K. Rowling’s fifth
installment in the Harry Potter’s series, the 766 page Book “Harry Potter and
the Order of the Phoenix” was released amid tight security and much fanfare.
The book will be placed in all book stalls amidst mounting excitement and
enthusiasm. Breaking the previous records of all sales. It is presumed that the
latest series is going to become the largest selling item in the history of
e-commerce. It is estimated that a staggering 200 million copies of the
previous four series are already sold. The first four series were translated into
more than 55 languages and is to be published in Latin and in ancient Greek
too. The new Editions will join 40 translations including one in Zulu. The
14-year old bespectacled boy has created history and sensation. Teenage girls
are vying with each other to marry him! That is his popularity among children
now.
How did Ms.
J. K. Rowling achieve this miracle? She, being poverty-stricken, single mother
once, is now richer than the Queen of England. Her worth is estimated $470
million. She humbly says that her wealth makes her feel guilty. She modestly
admits that she didn’t suffer enough for it. All this came to her through doing
the thing that she loved doing most. She just wrote the sort of thing that she
liked reading when she was a kid. She didn’t expect lots of people like her
books. In fact, she never really thought of getting Harry Potter published,
like she did with earlier two novels which remained unpublished till now. When
her son, David, was born on 24.3.03, she was already working on her 6th
book, which is going to become another Super hit.
Harry Potter
contains every ingredient that is loved and cherished by a child. It is filled
with fantasy, adventure, myth and magic and it never attempted either to preach
or to educate. The element of suspense heightens the interest of the readers
and it tickles one’s curiosity. Where does she get these ideas from? She says,
“ I wish I knew. Sometimes they just come like magic and other times I have to
sit and think for a week. Where the idea of Harry Potter actually came from, I
really could not tell you. I was on train between Manchester and London and it
just popped into my head. I spent four hours thinking about that. Hogwarts
would be like – the most interesting train journey I’ve ever taken. By the time
I got off at King’s Cross, many of the characters in the books had already been
invented”. Quite interesting experience indeed! The names of the characters
sound quite unusual. She collects them from all sorts of different places. For
example, ‘Dumble bee’ is taken from an old English word “Bumble Bee”. She has
selected some street names to use them as surnames. Words like ‘Malfoy’, ‘quidditch’
have been coined by her.
Story-telling
is an art. We all grew up listening to bed-time stories told by our grannies
and mummies. They serve the twin purpose of pleasure and profit. Enid Blyton,
who penned thousands of short stories, was adored by children for her beautiful
narration. She has given a new form and shape to children’s stories and
literature. However, Ms. Rowling seems to have taken over this mass appeal
which Enid Blyton once had. If story-telling is an art, who else but Ms.
Rowling, knows it better? Her creative talent and her ability to speak to
children directly are the key to her success. She knows the inner workings of a
child and knows how to touch their hearts. She knows how to appeal to a child’s
psychology.
At a time
when the youngsters are not paying any attention to improve their reading
skills, she brought out voluminous series of books which are making them go
back to reading habit, moving away from Television and the Web. It is very
difficult to divert their minds on to a book. Children do not concentrate on
reading a book unless they identify themselves with some of the characters in
the story and relate them to their life experiences. This is “The Magic of
Harry Potter”. The secret behind this astounding success is that the children
are identifying themselves with Harry.
In a country
like India there is hardly any good reading material for children. Children’s
fiction, which is a popular literary form is grossly neglected in our country.
Long long ago, Vishnu Sharma used this popular and powerful medium to instruct
and educate the king’s sons, who were dunces. He narrated the Panchatantra and
transformed the dunces into wise princes. Children’s stories not only please
them but also instruct. They sometimes carry a moral. We still remember La
Fontaines’s fables like ‘The Ant and the Grasshopper’ etc. Though we have had
several thousands of short and long stories for children before Harry Potter,
none would ever have imagined to see millions of children all over the world
reading with sustained interest, a book which contained more than 700 pages!
This book is
a challenge and a model to our authors of children’s books who lack creativity
and knowledge of child psychology.