Deathly Hallows Harry = “Pilgrim Soldier”?

So Daniel Radcliffe thinks. Check out that Leaky Cauldron video taken at the Half-Blood Prince movie release (the comment comes at 6:50).
No, I don’t think a young movie actor’s concept of what Deathly Hallows means is in any sense authoritative but I’d need to be the bigger goof than I am not to know that Mr. Radcliffe’s interpretation will very much influence the way that many readers will understand the series finale. Movies have that ability to re-shape what we have e…

‘Ten Myths About Writing for Kids’

These two pieces by Eugie Foster (here and here) which together spell out the Ten Myths about Writing for Kids confirmed my thinking about Joanne Rowling and Stephenie Meyer in two respects: (1) neither set out to write for children and (2) thinking of them as ‘kid lit’ authors is so far off base as to seem weird. None of the myths the estimable Ms. Foster discusses could possibly have been on Ms. Rowling’s or Mrs. Meyer’s mind when they set out. Here is the list of ten m…

Haven’t We Been Here Before?

Headlines last week read “Vatican Condemns Twilight.” whether that sounds familiar to Potter readers, it is the echo of the virtual reality experience we had in 2005 when Star Chamber Catholics in Canada created the “Pope Condemns Harry Potter” controversy on the eve of Order of the Phoenix‘ publication.
That was pretty foolish, considering the Pope didn’t do anything of the sort. that report turns out to be the real deal. I’ve written about it by at For…

Guest Post: Thoughts on Snape and Horcruxes

Friends at Scribbulus sent me that exchange, which, to use the language of the Pontifical Council on Culture about Twilight, certainly borders on the “excessively esoteric.” The dialogue, however, stretches the conversation about Horcruxes in a direction I wouldn’t have taken and thought you might find interesting. I particularly enjoyed the aside about Severus Snape. For your comments and corrections, thereupon, a dialogue within ‘Rotfang’ and ‘Caltheus:̵…

Anybody Know that Guy?

Speaker Relates Harry Potter to contemporary Issues
(H/T to David G!)

Percy Jackson Meets Harry Potter?

The LA Times suggests in an essay, Is Percy Jackson’s mythology too close to Harry Potter’s magic?, that Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series is necessarily derivative of our favorite boy wizard. That seems likely; I mean, how could anyone living in in the wake of Potter-mania write a coming-of-age story about a boy learning he has mythic parentage previously unknown to him and not manufacture readers and movie goers think of Harry and Hogwarts? When Percy is assigned to Camp Ha…

‘The Road to Hogwarts Sweepstakes’

“Register before 8 December for a chance to win a trip to the Grand Opening of the Potter Park in Orlando!”
Anyone want to write a Kafka-esque fan fiction piece in which Mad-Eye Moody visits the Wonderful World of Hogwarts theme park to find a rogue Death Eater in hiding? Please forward it to me here or even just a tease for our amusement here in a break from serious reading.
Who out there is going to the Grand Opening? Why?

Next Page »