Hope springs eternal
I’m probably reading more into the following statistic than I should, but it makes me happy all the same. Weekend sales of HPatHBP clocked in at 6.9 million in the first 24 hours of sale, valued at over $100 million. This makes it more successful than both of the highly anticipated new movie releases over the weekend combined.
So, why should I get all worked up over book sales? Because as I grow older, I find myself becoming a bigger and bigger advocate of reading, especially reading and children. MCG can tell you this firsthand - I think we’ve given the Princess some type of book (or books) for both birthdays and Christmas since she’s had them. And she’ll continue to get them. And I plan on reading to mine, should they ever decide to sprout out of the ground one of these days. (I’m already regretting even mentioning this, as I’m sure Teh One will be all over it within second of being read by her).
I’d run down a list of benefits, but I’ve exceeded my bullet point quota for the next few months with all my previous lists. But here’s a few resouces on reading to peruse.
Of them all, my favorite reason to promote reading to children is it promotes intelligent thought - well, it does as long as you’re not reading them anything by Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, or Al Franken. Getting children to think critically about books leads them to think critically about life, and allows them to take even the most biased information and put it into a sensible context (or reject it outright when it’s not sensible).
As for the book itself: I got home with it about 3 pm on Saturday, and was done by 2am that night. The book itself felt a bit rushed. Despite that, it was good overall (it must’ve been, I hardly put the thing down after I opened it), with a few actual moments I laughed out loud, more than a few revelations, and even more unanswered questions. But you can see the end in sight now. Rowlings says she’ll start working on the final book, “Harry Potter and the Return of the Jedi”, sometime next year, after taking the rest of the year off to spend with her daughter. Must be nice…
Oh, if you haven’t finished the book yet, I suggest you watch where you surf - spoilers are everywhere.
thegax wrote:
I likes me to reed sum buks a lot of the time. I reed good.
But seriously:
Don’t forget that reading also stimulates the imagination. Even escapist fiction (Harry Potter, Clancy, sci-fi, etc) has value in that context. I’m having trouble grapping on what I’m trying to say here. Something about how visualizing a scene from a book will help later in life somehow. How’s that for an example of the power of reading?
“Harry Potter and the Revenge of The Slyth(ern)”?
Here’s a spoiler for you: Harry’s a wizard. He is good with the magicks and stuff.
Posted on 20-Jul-05 at 5:08 am | Permalink