Lana Whited at Roanoke.Com

I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future – there will be books written about Harry – every child in the world will know his name!
Professor McGonagall, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Harry Potter in a plain brown wrapper? You might not see it in the United States, but the British publisher of "Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone" offered an edition with an alternate jacket, so adults could enjoy the popular young wizard’s adventures without the stigma of reading a children’s book.

The Potter publishers (Scholastic) are said to be printing 3.8 million copies of Harry IV, due for release today. Nearly 2 million of them are, reportedly, sold already, via online booksellers and other pre-orders. This is no surprise, considering the three earlier books in Harry’s saga have spent 173 weeks on The New York Times’ bestsellers list – in hardcover. They currently occupy the number 3, 4, and 13 positions. Potter & Co’s impressive numbers make one thing obvious: Harry’s fans are not all children.

In February, when my rebuttal to a William Safire attack on J.K. Rowling’s best-sellers appeared here, a Huddleston man whose grandson turned him on to the Potter phenomenon e-mailed to thank me for defending Harry. Since then, I’ve been struck by how many times I’ve heard that same story – "I read my granddaughter’s (or grandson’s) Harry Potter books, and now I’m a fan, too."

At the recent Children’s Literature Association's annual conference, held at the Hotel Roanoke, I met many more of Harry’s grown-up readers, most of whom take him very seriously. A few days later, a middle-aged music professor friend of mine told me she’s eager to get Harry IV delivered by an online bookseller promptly on July 8th. She’s one of nearly 240,000 to order the book in advance from that e-merchant alone.

Only one aspect of this phenomenon interests me more than reports that Harry has lured many youngsters into reading – why he has so many adult fans. A big fad piques our curiosity, and Harry is huge. The first three volumes of his adventures have sold 28 million copies worldwide – 21 million of those sales in the United States.

Forbes magazine recently ranked author J.K. Rowling 24th on a list of celebrity earners, just behind Michael Jordan. The urge to see what the fuss is all about will drive some adults into bookstores.

Children’s enthusiastic response to Harry is also intriguing. I know a 9-year-old who read all 435 pages of "The Prisoner of Azkaban" (Book III) in about four days. Book IV is rumored to be over 700 pages, and still young people clamor for it. When "Azkaban" debuted late last summer, British bookstores changed its release time to prevent children from skipping school to buy it.

Even more remarkably, Harry’s adventures have converted the unlikeliest group of readers – adolescent boys. The warnings from some fundamentalist corners -- that Harry will lead children to practice the "dark arts" -- has only increased the din.

On June 15th, USA Today reported that there have been 25 attempts in 17 states to remove Harry Potter from library shelves in 2000. Forbidden fruit takes on an unusually appealing quality for some who might not have sampled it otherwise.

For those adults who, for whatever reason, have picked up the books, other factors keep them reading. One is a nostalgia for the atmosphere of childhood, an experience so foreign to adulthood that it has its own vocabulary. In Harry’s world, children play "Quidditch" and feel sorry for non-magical "Muggles." They send messages to one another via owls and travel from place to place by chimney. People in paintings are animated – Harry’s dead parents wave to him from a photograph – stairways move, and train platforms aren’t always there.

Especially for those adults whose lives are limited to workday and routine, Harry’s world offers escape, and Rowling’s charming innovations provide surprise.

Harry’s universe is also appealing because it is a moral realm. If more of those who object to the series’ inclusion of magic focused instead on the ethics of Harry’s decisions, they would find a boy who is a loyal friend, a (generally) respectful student, and, in his third adventure, an agent of justice.

My own presentation at the recent Children’s Literature Association meeting focused on how reading these books moves children along through the stages of moral development identified in the 1970s by Harvard professor Lawrence Kohlberg, whose theories are a staple of education programs. Harry ranks fairly high on Kohlberg’s scale, and those who don’t, such as the bully Draco Malfoy or Harry’s relatives The Dursleys, are presented as disagreeable characters.

We want our reading experiences to end in the symmetry of a mystery solved or justice done. This accounts, in large part, for the appeal of Agatha Christie and other popular mystery writers. It is also a factor in Harry’s success.

Some fairly important folks have weighed in on the quality of the Harry Potter books. In late January, New York Times columnist William Safire declared, "Prizeworthy culture it ain’t, and more than a little is a waste of adult time." On June 25th, Anthony Holden of the prestigious Whitbread Prize committee – the British Pulitzers – called the books "one-dimensional . . . Disney cartoons written in words, no more."

It should be noted that neither dissenter read the book under consideration for literary prizes this year, "The Prisoner of Azkaban." Safire read only Book I, and Holden declared that he stopped after I and II. It should also be noted that both Safire and Holden are wrong.

I’m not here to argue that the Harry Potter books are the best ever written, in the young adult category or any other. However, they are quality books – far superior to other popular series for children, such as Goosebumps.

So far, Rowling’s work has improved with each volume. She employs a number of literary devices which may be lost on young readers but which work for adults. Harry’s saga also taps into an established archetype, or pattern, which Otto Rank calls "the myth of the birth of the hero" – the narrative of a distinguished person whose distinction is unrecognized during his childhood but who eventually reclaims his rightful position.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because you know the stories of Cinderella and Moses. As any good adolescent novel must, the Harry Potter volumes appeal on many levels, and young people reading them now can anticipate a different experience when they’re older.

Maybe the best consequence of the Harry Potter phenomenon is adults and children are sharing it. My 9-year-old speed-reader friend asked for a copy of the paper I gave at the Children’s Literature Conference, and some 6th and 7th graders were present at the session. That kind of interchange isn’t true of many other recent fads, except maybe Beanie Babies, but questions like "Which ones do you have?" aren't nearly as substantive as "Who’s your favorite character?" and "Which book do you like best?"

As the infant Harry Potter is left on his relatives’ doorstep, a knowledgeable observer declares, "I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter day in the future – there will be books written about Harry – every child in the world will know his name!"

Today may very well be "Harry Potter Day," and a number of the celebrants will be people taller than Harry.

Why adults are wild about Harry