| From
the September/October 1999 issue of The Horn Book Magazine
Editorial
Potter’s Field
 n
this occasion of our 75th anniversary issue, I’m reminded
what a constant presence the past is at the Horn Book offices. When,
as we do here with some regularity, we invoke past editors of the
Horn Book, we don’t bother with chronology. They
aren’t Back Then but (with the exception of my immediate predecessor)
Up There and at the same time, with physical as well as intellectual
evidence at hand, Still Here. We often call upon them while assigning
books for review. Something arcanely Anglophilic? “Assign
it to Ethel.” A new book about Babe Ruth? We wonder if baseball
fan Anita Silvey can be lured back to bat for two hundred words
or so. I outrage the doll collectors of America (see last issue’s
editorial, and next issue’s letters) and ask Bertha for help.
But then I remember her Bookshop muse, Alice-Heidi, and sadly think,
no help There.
Right now I really want to ask them all about Harry
Potter. I don’t have any opinions about Harry;
at least, I didn’t have any opinions until J. K.
Rowling’s series became a “publishing phenomenon”
(ghastly but apt phrase) and—as Canadian critic Perry Nodelman
recently discovered when he appeared on a Boston radio call-in show
— children’s books became All About Harry. So I’m
feeling suckered — neither by the book nor by the publisher,
but by the cosmic forces that have ordained that this likable but
critically insignificant series become wildly popular and therefore
news, and therefore something I’m supposed to have an opinion
about.
We are given to understand that the presence of
the Harry Potter books on myriad bestseller lists means
something beyond the obvious redundancy, that is, the books are
bestsellers because lots of people are buying, and, presumably,
liking them. But what else does it mean? As I write, the New
York Times fiction bestseller list includes, along with the
first two Harry Potters, books by Thomas Harris, Stephen
King, and Danielle Steel. Steel’s Granny Dan, this
week, is doing better than either of the Harrys, therefore
. . . well, therefore nothing.
I will be accused of disingenuousness. The difference
is that Harry Potter is a children’s book
on the bestseller list. Of course. But when R. L. Stine’s
Goosebumps started invading the lists, I don’t recall a similar
atmosphere of jubilation. Reactions ranged from condemnatory to
dismissive. And all that the annual appearance of Dr. Seuss’s
Oh, the Places You’ll Go! means is that it’s
June. I have more respect for Harry Potter than I do for
most children’s books, both real and so-called, that bleep
onto the adult-attention radar screen, but I can’t help asking
why all those literati who regularly demonstrate disdain for the
latest bestseller craze have decided to change the rules for Harry.
Why, for heaven’s sake, did the British Library Association
feel it needed to publish a prepared statement explaining why Harry
had not figured in this year’s Carnegie Medal? Mr. and Mrs.
Heins are appalled (they told me).
In a letter accompanying a reader’s copy
of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Scholastic
says of the Harry books, “all of this attention focused on
a children’s book can only be good for the visibility of children’s
literature in general — everyone wins.” Most teachers,
librarians, booksellers, and parents I’ve talked to agree;
Harry Potter is not a success born of publishers’
hype. But I feel compelled to add that Harry’s blessing
is not unmixed. It sets an odd standard for success; in fact, success
itself becomes the standard. Bestseller lists are a perilous blend
of reportage and marketing: lots of people have bought this book
and, therefore, so should you. Harry Potter has become
a case not of attention focused on a children’s book, but
attention focused on attention; the “visibility of children’s
literature” less important than the inevitable search for
the “next Harry Potter.” For, to paraphrase
the late Jacqueline Susann (who certainly knew a thing or three
about how bestsellerdom works), once is never enough.
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