The Harry Potter Conundrum

Everyone who works in children’s books is familiar with the Harry Potter conundrum. Written over a 10-year span, the books increased in complexity and emotional heft book by book as the characters aged up with their audience. Kids who read the first charming, magical romp when they were seven were 17 by the time the 700+ page final tome rolled around. Not a standard model for series publishing for children, the series nonetheless defined the childhoods of a generation of readers and captivated adults in equal measure.
If you’ve ever worked in a bookstore, you also know that Harry Potter conversations themselves are rife with tricky interactions. Many a precocious six, seven, or eight year old has read Harry Potter, leaving their parents confident that they are ready for something just as thick or written at an equal level (which by book seven basically means YA). It’s almost a bookselling cliché at this point—that everyone’s gifted grandchild has read Harry Potter years ahead of their peers and needs something new to challenge them at their “advanced level.”
As much as the cliché is based on real bookstore dynamics, these conversations don’t make me roll my eyes. I understand why it’s so confusing. Harry Potter has entered our cultural zeitgeist to the point where kids are motivated to read beyond their comfort zone just to find out what the excitement is about. It doesn’t mean that going back to something a little lighter is a backslide, and it also doesn’t mean their attention will be held by something equally hefty and involved. That’s what I tell parents and grandparents all the time, and, honestly, they usually get it. ... [mehr] http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=29462