A great number of people believe that the Harry Potter books are going to be (or already are) the great magical talisman that saves our children from the dark shadow of illiteracy we've apparently been watching creep towards us. These fierce advocates of Harry think that because every second kid has a copy, then this would suggest that all those kids are discovering for the first time the wonder of books which has been lost somewhere between the morning cartoons and the evening soapies.

They might be right, if not for all, then at least for some. When the Harry Potter hysteria first kicked off I felt quite sure that this theory was nonsense. It's a craze, I said. They're only reading these books because their friends have them. It'll blow over, I said.

Well it hasn't blown over, has it? It's still going gang-busters. A lot of kids and teachers I've spoken to have told me of reluctant readers who have read the Harry Potter books (five times each) and now possess the confidence to tackle other chapter books. Maybe it's so. And if it's so, I stand corrected, and I'll go further by saying that's terrific.

But I still wonder, is Harry really going to send our kids back to books in the long term? Perhaps. We do live in hope. We won't know for some time. If, after all seven books have been released and the movies made and the hype died away, children are picking up, reading and actually getting excited about other books as well, then perhaps we'll be able to say with some assuredness that Harry made the children read. But not until then. Because at the moment, what we still have is a craze. A world-wide craze, but a craze nonetheless.

Actually, you know what? Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's gone beyond craze. Like I said, a year ago I was positive it was just a craze, but now... well, perhaps it's gone the next step, to fashion. And fashion, as we well know, fades and gives way to something new. A bit like a craze, really.

I hope you can forgive my apparent cynicism and see it as something other than professional envy. But the trouble is, I've seen this happen before. Not with a book, but with a movie. A great movie, we were told. In fact, it was not just a great motion picture, but according to some "the greatest motion picture of all time." Of course, the movie I refer to is Titanic, that piece of historically opportunistic and overblown dross which cost something like $120 million to make.

And therein lies the deception. We want to believe that any film costing that much to make must be a truly great piece of film-making. No one (not even James Cameron) could screw up with that kind of budget. Big boat, big film, big making-of doco. It all screams great film!

But guess what? It wasn't. It was a piece of rubbish. But it cost $120 million to make, so it had to be good.

The same thing has happened with our friend Harry. When the evening news tells us that 35,000 copies of the fourth Happy Potter book were sold on opening day in Australia, we respond by saying, "That must be a great book." When the TV news shows images of kids queuing around the block in scenes reminiscent of the last Beatles tour, again we take this a proof positive of the quality of these books. And when, as a filler piece, the late bulletin tells us about JK Rowling and her new house in Kensington, we have no choice but to accept that as evidence of her vast talents as a writer.

Yes, Rowling is a talented storyteller. There can be no question of this. And children do love the stories. What kid doesn't like a story where the parents aren't around to tell them what to do, and wherein the heroes can wreak revenge on their enemies using magical powers? It's a great child fantasy -- perhaps the greatest -- and Rowling has done a fine job of harnessing that exciting notion. But even more talented than Rowling are her publicists. A commonly held misconception about Rowling is that she wrote her first Harry Potter book a) so that her child could eat; b) in a coffee shop to which she ran to escape from her c) rat-infested hovel. She herself says that these things are only partly true -- that she wrote in a coffee shop because she likes coffee, and that the rats were mice and the hovel a flat. As for the need to write a best-seller out of a desperate need to feed one's child... no, not quite right either. Anyone who has ever tried to write a bestseller can tell you that there are better and more certain ways to feed one's family. But these myths are allowed to persist, if not encouraged. It's another fantasy -- the hard-bitten artist making good. And we love it.

I believe there is one more reason behind Harry's success, and it's got nothing to do with opening children's eyes to books and stories. They already knew about that. As Steven Herrick once said to me, children want to read. They always have. They already know that books hold magic -- teachers tell them this all the time. The other thing they want is for the adults in their lives to let them know that it's OK to read. Even without meaning to, adults have been doing exactly this by lining up with children to buy a book which is clearly written for kids. Children who see adults reading Harry Potter books on the train feel validated in their desire to enjoy a good story for a good story's sake. And that's where the craze might begin to turn into the beginnings of something more, the origins of a good, life-long habit. It's got little to do with wizards and magic, and more to do with children seeing that a book can be as entertaining as TV, even to dullards like adults.

One final point. In my opinion, certain folk within the book industry should be ridden out of town on a rail for their cynical treatment of this phenomenon. A major US best-seller list refused to place the Harry Potter books on their mainstream list, since these are children's books. This despite their superior numbers in absolute sales. As someone who plies their literary trade primarily in the children's field, I find this absurd and insulting.

Revenge was sweet when it fell upon one Sydney chain-bookseller. Opening day for Book 4, they were selling their copies at AUS$19.95, which is some two dollars below cost. Why? Presumably because they were in it for the passing trade, the suggest-sell and the Harry Potter merchandise. A different bookseller up the street ran out of stock partway through the day. The staff of this second store marched along to the first, badges still in situ, and bought every copy at the reduced price. They then proceeded to resticker and sell them at the full price of $35. I think that this might be the most delicious thing I've ever heard.

So is Harry a fad? If so, he's got legs, that's for sure. Will he last beyond the movie? Maybe, maybe not. Prior to its release I quite suspected that some of the magic would be lost once the train, station and Hogwarts itself had been seen in cinematic splendour, but that's another issue altogether. Of more interest to me is whether a film so acclaimed for sticking so closely to the original text leaves enough out to send children back to the books. (Incidentally, kids I spoke to said the movie's best feature was its obsessively close adherence to the book. Some adults claimed that this was its worst.) Perhaps the movie is a phenomenon in its own right. I think it would have been an interesting experiment for the publishers to allow the movie to be made with the strict provision that no video/DVD release would follow. That might have driven some readers to the books. But we'll never really know, because our local video shop had a waiting list for the DVD within a week of the movie opening.

But back to the main point. Is Harry Potter going to make all our children read like we adultsa claim we used to? Sorry to be so blunt, but No. These books might cause some children turn to books even more, but I suspect that most of those children who demonstrate a long-lived love for books after reading Harry Potter would have done so anyway. And for the rest -- maybe we shouuld just let them enjoy the ride, and when it comes to an end, make sure we're waiting for them with a well-bound ticket to a new one.

(c) James Roy 1999