Good afternoon! The Word of the Day is:
-Decade-
[pronounced dek-ayd]
n.
1) a period of ten consecutive years
2) a period of ten years beginning with a year whose last digit is zero i.e. the decade of the 1980s
3) a group, set, or series of ten
Harry Potter: A Decade of Magic
With the release of the final film installment of J.K. Rowling's tremendously successful Harry Potter series, we take a look back on a decade filled with incredible imagination, magic, and heart-felt memories. As fans around the world anxiously prepare for the climatic ending of the Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows movie, many wonder just how influential Harry Potter has been for not only children's literature and reading habits, but for education as well. Since the introduction of the first book in 1997, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Rowling's books have been readily accepted by many parents and educators world-wide, who have since watched their children and students turn off the television to read the captivating books.
The book industry's view of children's literature has been dramatically influenced and altered with the introduction of Harry Potter, considering some of the novels range between 700 to even 800 pages. Rebecca Hall, a youth services programmer at Kingsport Public Library in Kingsport, Tennessee agrees that the Potter franchise has generated an overwhelming amount of influence on children's reading habits. She states, "When you have a good series like this that generated so much publicity and got younger middle schoolers interested and got them to sit down and become wrapped up in these adventures, that says something in this age." Not only did Harry Potter start a revolution within children's literature, but the series also created an insatiable "spin-off effect" for children who went hungrily looking for other book series similar to the Harry Potter adventures they enjoyed so much.
In an article by Kevin Castle explaining Harry Potter's influence as kids grow into teens, a 2006 survey was conducted on students that showed how the books actually increased their excitement towards reading outside of school, and actually allowed them to concentrate on the quality of their studies. Another test was conducted in 2006 by the Kids and Family Reading Report, revealing that 65 percent of children aged five to seventeen said they read the Harry Potter series and had actually done increasingly better in school. Also, the test showed how the reading habits of boys in particular had doubled during that time period.
Now with the final movie approaching, those same children who began reading the Harry Potter series in 1997 have also grown up right alongside Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Hall exclaims, "[These children] have grown up with these characters, they have progressed into young adults as [the characters] have." The influence of "Pottermania" has indeed been a world-wide phenomenon for over a decade, but as the franchise is set to end tonight at midnight, Harry Potter will forever remain a cultural classic for years to come.
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