The first three Harry novels taught kids the joys of reading. Nearly four million copies have already been printed for the American market alone, and every single one of them has 752 pages. Most people have already heard the story of how J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter's creator, was a single mom living in an unheated apartment in Edinburgh. She envisioned seven books, which would follow Harry through his years at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and into an inevitable battle with Voldemort, the rogue wizard who killed Harry's parents. Many kids now regard literacy as a utilitarian skill, but Harry's magical powers include winning some of these vidkids over to the concept of reading for pleasure.
Nothing warms the heart of an adult more than seeing a child curled up with a good book.
The Harry Potter books have been on the best-seller list so long now that it's clear adult sales must be helping to keep them aloft. Ms. Rowling, however, appears to be into the story line, which is going to get darker and more corpse-strewn with each of the ensuing segments. She is now an incredibly rich and famous celebrity, seller of 30 million copies in 31 languages and clearly no longer a person to whom an editor can suggest that 752 pages is a little over the top. Harry is so popular that millions of strangers feel they have a stake in his future, but it's probably not fair to deny his creator her vision for the series, or even to carp about the movie deal. But the sentimentalists among us are going to mourn the days when Harry existed only in books, which were smaller than breadboxes.