Lunchtime Book Recommendations: An Idea as to How to Create Must Read Books

I often eat lunch in the Hebrew Academy lunchroom during the same time as some of the elementary school grades. The other day, I was in the lunchroom when I saw one of the teachers do something very interesting. Towards the end of the half hour period, when students were beginning to finish, she took the microphone and asked if any students would be interested in coming up to tell everyone about a book they recently read and would recommend. The teacher then asked for a show of hands as to who has read the book. A young friend of mine recommended Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It seems that the vast majority of the kids have read the series. I am not familiar with these books but they clearly seem to be very popular. Another kid came to the floor carrying a copy of Garth Nix’s Lirael and suggested the first book in the series, Sabriel. When asked what he liked about the books the kid did not say anything so I shouted out “Mogget.” Mogget is a cat shaped spirit, who likes sleep and fish and will kill you if you take his collar of. His main role in the series is to be the sardonic voice of reason, saying “this is stupid and we are all going to die.” I raised my hand, but was not called upon. I wanted to recommend Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games. This is a teenage book about a reality show in which twenty-four kids are thrown in a giant arena; the last one alive wins a life of fortune and fame. Think of it as Theseus meets Lord of the Flies with a totally awesome heroine armed with a bow and arrow.
This whole idea of allowing kids to come up and make book recommendations is an excellent exercise in controlled chaos. We are handing a microphone over to kids without any prescreening and they get pitch any book they so wish. I also think it is a brilliant way to sell reading to kids. One of the advantages that movies and television have over books is that they start with a wider audience and there are fewer of them to compete for an audience. This allows for the creation of a “must see” factor; people will watch films and television shows, regardless of their actual merit, simply because they know that other people are watching these things and they do not want to be left out when these things are being discussed say around the office water-cooler. The model here is for committed individuals to take an interest in something. Once a critical mass is reached, these individuals become a group and the object of their interest becomes a lightning-rod for others to bring them into the group. A larger and larger group of people will “tune in” to find out what the whole fuss is about.

It is certainly possible for books to do this. Harry Potter and Twilight are proof. In both cases, Goblet of Fire for Potter and Breaking Dawn for Twilight, these series had a moment where they went from just being very successfully books to being “cultural phenomenon.” The key to this was that these books became big enough to catch the attention of the media. The media, true to its fashion, made these books front page news as they “examined” the phenomena. Of course being front page news sold more copies of these books, bringing more “examinations” and continuing the cycle. Potter and Twilight succeed through a bit of luck and because they possessed certain qualities to give them mass appeal. The question becomes, how do you create a dozen Potters and Twilights? Take Nix’s Abhorsen series mentioned earlier, these are the sort of books that have the right mixture of in theory being for children while having more adult content to appeal to a mass audience. All that is needed is that bit of luck to create the needed critical mass in order to attract media attention and make them “must read” books.

Having kids come up and recommend books to their peers in a public forum allows for the creation of small groups around a book. I get up and recommend a book. Someone else raises their hand to show that they read it. Now I have something to go over to that person with in order to talk to them. A third person in the audience in the crowd sees that two people have read this book and are excited about it. This person then goes and reads the book. Now you have three people interested in something. Interest gathers interest and before you know it you have chain reaction of people reading the book to find out what everyone else is talking about. And you have it, Must Read Books!

A Final Goodbye to Harry Potter

I finished reading Deathly Hallows and am now coming to terms with the fact that this is the end. I feel personally indebted to J. K. Rowling for all the good times she has given me over the years. I got into the series when I was sixteen back in January of 2000. I waited along with millions of others for the fourth book, Goblet of Fire. I endured three years waiting for Order of the Phoenix and another two years for the Half-Blood Prince. Now, after waiting seven and a half years, the story has been told and it has run its course. Voldemort has been defeated and the survivors (the bodies do pile up in this book) go on to build new lives for themselves. As a final chapter, Rowling sticks in an epilogue taking place nineteen years down the road in which some of our favorite, and not so favorite, surviving Hogwarts students are now parents themselves taking their children to King's Cross station 9 3/4 to catch the train to Hogwarts.

I could not think of a more definitive way to end the series, barring going Dr. Strangelove on people. (Speaking of Dr. Strangelove, I would imagine he would particularly approve of Wormtail's fate.) The world has moved on and it is now time for a new generation of children to experience Hogwarts. The story of Harry, Ron, and Hermione is finished. The only purpose to be served by writing more Harry Potter adventures would be for the author to make more money. Not that I have a problem with authors making money. Rowling deserves every penny she has earned. The problem is that writing for the bottom line is seldom going to put out books that authors and fans of a series can be proud of. Look at Brian Jacques' Redwall series. I truly wish that it ended after six books. Instead, Jacques has simply told the same stories over and over again pouring out pale imitations of his first books. (I do recommend his early books though.) While there is nothing further to do with Harry, the wizarding world is a rich one and I for one would love to still explore it if the story is right. I am not sure though what kind of story would work. It would be tempting to do prequels about James Potter at Hogwarts. The problem though is that we already know the story of James Potter and his friends. Furthermore, such stories would lack a Voldemort to keep some purpose to the stories. Without Voldemort the stories would simply be repeats of the first two Potter books; kids at school getting into and dodging trouble.

In truth, I was always much more interested in the wizarding world itself than I was with Harry. In a sense, my biggest disappointment of the final four books was that Rowling did not do more with Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. The story remained firmly about Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I suspect though that Rowling may have done the right thing. Part of the charm of unexplored horizons is that they remain unexplored as unrequited desires.

I would never claim that Harry Potter is the greatest series of books ever written. If one wishes to put them under a critical lens one can find plenty to attack. If you doubt me read Prof. Harold Bloom. That being said, I have never had so much fun reading a series of books as I have had with Potter. I do not even know why this is the case, it defies logical analysis. I suspect people will be debating this issue for decades. What made Potter so special? There are plenty of fantasy writers out there who on the surface would seem to be as talented or even more so than Rowling. Take authors like Garth Nix (Abhorsen Trilogy and Keys to the Kingdom) and Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials) for example. They both deal with similar types of material to what you find in Rowling and, on technical grounds, one can make a pretty good case that they are stronger writers than her. Neither of them has sold 300 million copies. They have written some great books, which I enjoyed immensely, but neither of them ever grabbed me the way that Potter's universe did.

Goodbye Harry and Thank You, J. K. Rowling.