Like magic, they're readers (2024)

Published July 15, 2005|Updated Aug. 25, 2005

Midday Thursday, the Govin family _ Caleb, 11, and parents Kevin and Charlotte _ trudged across the parking lot of Borders on a mission to buy a Harry Potter book.

No, not Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 10.8-million copies of which will go on sale at the stroke of midnight tonight. The first one from 1998, the one that started all this craziness.

"It's on his summer reading list," Kevin Govin said. "He could pick any of the Harry Potter books, but the first was the shortest. He's really more of a Captain Underpants fan."

Clearly, Caleb is not going to be among the legion of bleary-eyed preteens pulling all-nighters to devour the latest in J.K. Rowling's monumentally popular saga of the magical orphaned boy.

But the very fact that so many children intend to plunge into a book _ temporarily abandoning their interest in TV, movies, computers, video games, the mall, food and instant messaging _ makes a lot of adults very happy.

Rowling, they say, has performed the ultimate act of literacy conjuring: She has turned nonreaders into readers.

"Kids who didn't read before for pleasure started reading Harry Potter, and it definitely seems to have inspired them to read other things in between Harry Potter books or between re-readings of Harry Potter books," said Susan Oliver, youth services coordinator for the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System.

A study just released in the United Kingdom appears to give some statistical credence to that notion. The Federation of Children's Book Groups surveyed 1,000 children on the subject of Harry Potter's influence on their reading habits.

"Almost six out of 10 children think the books have helped them improve their reading skills," according to an article in the Scotsman, Rowling's hometown newspaper. "And 48 percent say Rowling's creation is the reason they read more."

More is right.

The books are long. Half-Blood Prince runs 672 pages. The fourth one, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was a whopping 752.

Some are not so sure that the excitement to read extends beyond the series itself.

The record-breaking sales figures "don't translate into greater interest in reading," said Matt Antonio, manager for the "right half" of the Barnes & Noble in South Tampa, which includes the children's section. "It translates into greater interest in reading Harry Potter books."

But even a casual examination of the average children's section reveals an array of titles much larger than in the pre-Harry era.

When Mart Sadler was starting out in retail book sales in the early 1980s, the general manager of Borders recalls that "less than 5 percent of the store was devoted to children's books. Now it's 10 to 15 percent. Demand is higher than it was 20 years ago."

Circulation figures for children's books at the city of St. Petersburg's libraries have increased 10 percent over the past five to six years, said Mary Gaines, director of the libraries. Children's books account for 20 percent of the nearly 1.1-million books loaned every year, she said.

Tesco, the British retailer, commissioned a study of 2,600 parents this year, asking about their children's reading habits.

"Contrary to popular belief," said Tesco's book buyer Caroline Ridding on a Web site for the U.K.-based Literacy Trust, "children read more today than ever before. Far from being obsessed with TV and computer games, our study shows their love of reading is greater than ever."

A Danish study from 2000 suggests that the outlook for children's literacy is not quite as dark as Lord Voldemort's heart.

"The emergence of new media and the expansion of familiar media have not led to Danish children reading less," wrote Torben Weinreich, director of the Centre for Children's Literature. Fifty-six percent of children "read books often, that is, at least several times a week, most of these even almost every day," according to the study. Moreover, the number of children who "seldom or never read" had fallen from 29 percent in 1993 to 25 percent in 2000.

Like magic, they're readers (2024)

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