| From
the January/February 2001 issue of The Horn Book Magazine
Editorial
When Harry Met Dorothy
 .
Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, commemorated in this
issue by Michael Patrick Hearn, has more in common with J. K. Rowling’s
Harry Potter series than just a population of assorted fantastic
beings. Other assorted beings, no more fantastical than
you or I, have worked hard to keep both Harry and Dorothy out of
the hands of children: Harry, for fear that he might seduce them
into paganism; Dorothy, because not only does she make attractive
the virtues of witches et al. but also because she has been accused
of bad writing and series-itis.
With his adventures so far clocking in at four
volumes and 1819 pages, Harry also shows unmistakable signs of series-itis.
But arriving onto the scene at a later date than did Baum’s
heroine, he finds a children’s literature establishment less
inclined to pronounce him ill; in fact, he is the picture of health.
Dorothy, too, has shown remarkable signs of recovery. It’s
hard to say who owes whom.
What’s changed is the diagnosis. Both Dorothy
and Harry arrived to instant popular acclaim, but while she had
to wait many decades for the imprimatur of librarians, he showed
up to starred reviews, library parties, and ALA commendation. On
the one hand, Harry’s success could be seen as evidence of
a welcome unbuttoning of critical standards that were too tight
to begin with. It could also be argued that he shows us that children
have better taste than we’ve given them credit for. Harry
has called into question any number of myths that govern our ideas
of what children “like” — for starters, that they
like short books.
On the other hand (c’mon, this is the Horn
Book. You knew this shoe was about to drop), the meshing
of critical and popular enthusiasm for Harry Potter calls into question
the relevance of aesthetic criteria at all. Perhaps we are so desperately
happy to see children reading enthusiastically that questions of
series-itis or bad writing are both impolitic (for literacy usually
trumps literature, particularly at election times) and impolite
(for in these anxiously egalitarian days it is rude to make judgments
about another’s choice of reading).
We could simply declare victory by pronouncing
Harry Potter an occasion of happy circumstance where public taste
and critical opinion concur, but there are still questions that
won’t — shouldn’t — go away, and Harry Potter
is the least of it. If “the children like it” becomes
the sit-stay command of children’s literature criticism, then
we don’t need critics. And, lest you think I am arguing simply
out of self-preservation, I would point out that it means we don’t
need grownups, either.
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