Guide to the Harry Potter Novels (Contemporary Classics in Children's Literature) - Softcover

Eccleshare, Julia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826453171 ISBN 13: 9780826453174

Publisher: Continuum, 2002

Synopsis

JK Rowling now is half-way through a series which has taken the world by storm. Unusually, she has attracted success both in terms of massive sales figures and critical acclaim. This study will look at her books and consider some of the reasons for their phenomenal success. This will be done against a background of how Harry Potter relates to other contemporary childrenĘs books so that students and teachers can place them in the context for which they were written.This book has not been authorized by JK Rowling, her agent, or Warner Bros.

About this title

About the Author:

Julia Eccleshare is children's books editor of the Guardian (one of the UK's top broadsheets). She has written on children's books for 25 years and regularly appears on BBC programmes and in "The Bookseller". One of her reviews provided blurb for the first paperback edition of "Harry Potter".

Review:

"a thoughtful introduction to the phenomenon that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone"
—Children's Literature Association Quarterly, Winter 02-03

'Eccleshare addresses pertinent race and gender issues, examines Rowling's handling of education and the family, and touches on some broad social implications of current widespread enthusiasm for Harry Potter.' (Modern Literature)

"Overall, this useful text serves its purpose by providing alaunching point for parents and high school teachers. It may even serve someuse as supplementary reading for Children's or Young Adult literature coursesfocused on the Potter books."- Brent Stypczynski, International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, Summer2006, 17.2 (International Association for the Fantastic Arts)

"Without pretension, she reminds us of how useful it is to stand back from the razzmatazz of book reading and selling and library works and the rest, to take stock of what makes Harry Potter books tick... Eccleshare opens up a number of critical ideas that are always worth asking... She combines "conventionality with traditionalism" and so makes a suitable case for treatment by Olympian critics keen to detect sources, devise theories and distrust commercialism. I hope Eccleshare rewrites the book now that the Harry Potter series is complete." Stuart Hannabuss, LR 57,8

“Overall, this useful text serves its purpose by providing alaunching point for parents and high school teachers. It may even serve someuse as supplementary reading for Children’s or Young Adult literature coursesfocused on the Potter books.”- Brent Stypczynski, International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts, Summer2006, 17.2 (Sanford Lakoff)

About this edition

• Publisher: Continuum
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0826453171
• ISBN 13: 9780826453174
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 124