Despite the raging success of J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter franchise and fandom, half of all youngsters haven’t even heard of Harry Potter, a poll suggests.
And, only a quarter of seven to fourteen year olds have discovered him through reading, this same poll shows.
You can click on this link to read the whole article, which shows disturbing facts about even more books, which I am sure a lot of people grew up with.
I find it really a shame that so many people haven’t heard of Harry Potter. He’s brought wonderful things into Potterheads’ lives, and yet so many don’t even know that these books exist, let alone have actually read them. I honestly don’t believe that Harry Potter will ever die, but now I can’t be sure. I hope it doesn’t though. To me, it just seems too fantastically, amazingly brilliant.
Well, simply ask an adult in an official manner “What have you been doing to promote a love of reading and literature in your home and for your children?” Many will look at you with an expression that says ‘nobody told us we were supposed to do that.’ I mean, really. Remember what percentage of adults have read a book in the last year, and remember the kids at school who just ‘don’t like reading.’ One PE teacher in my school didn’t know what a Hufflepuff was, and another was completely shocked to find out that Darth Vader was really Anakin Skywalker (finding out just a little less than a month ago.) If the parents or siblings don’t tell the kids anything about these stories, and it’s not taught in the school curriculum, then who will tell them? Eventually they might hear it from their friends, but it’s just the fact that many in America today just don’t like to read.