Tags: Readership, Children, Book, Harry Potter, Textuality, Fan Fiction, J.K.Rowling
When mentioning children literature, Harry Potter saga is always cited as a particularly successful example. In our modern society, in which instant culture spreads out over the globe, it is indeed a miracle to keep readers, especially children readers to sit for hours without TV or computers, but with a book. Like Zipes said, not all children “read the same ways, nor do all children read best-sellers, especially when they are over 700 pages long” (185). Besides the success of the story itself as a masterpiece of children fantasy, which refers to the inter-textuality of the book, its appeal to young readers partly attributes to its textuality and extra-textuality. Basically this paper will analyze how the extra-textuality and textuality interact with each other to promote the popularity of Harry Potter series among teenage readers. Within each aspect, I will be focusing on following points: the fan-fiction-phenomenon and adaption-films (extra-textuality), and the “interpretative strategies” and choices of illustration (textuality).
Firstly, the role of children as co-writers effectively triggers the expansion of Harry Potter’s readership. According to Morgenstern, the development of children’s literature is “intimately connected to the history of printing” (10). Since the 18th century, after the spreading of literacy, a growing number of people gained the capability and opportunity to read, but most of them cannot write. Nowadays, the identities of reader and writers have blurred since most readers own the basic knowledge and chances to write. For children readers, the fan fiction is certainly a way to enhance their reading interests since they are given chances to create their own plot, storyline, even characters based on the original story. The development of internet and other advanced technologies “gradually transformed the shared experience of story into a producer-receiver dynamic” (Bond and Michelson 310), which leads fiction-fans to switch from the “internal bound” with the story to expressing themselves through an “external form” (310), which builds intimated relationships with the novel through the platform of fan fiction.
Besides the co-writing experience, other extra-textual sources work on the promotion of Harry Potter series as well. The first Harry Potter film was screened in 2000 after the third book’s publishing, which gained huge success. Besides the original fiction-fans who went to movie theaters, it attracted more attentions from other audiences who were not interested in the fiction before watching the film. By de-virtualizing the sets, characters and plots, the original fiction-fans would like to compare the characters and mise-en-scene between the film and the novels, in other words, their imagination, which often attracts them to re-read the novels. “Just as the novel can affect the reception and response of a film, films, especially those with big-budget studio funds for extensive cross-promotion, can affect the reception of the novels on which they are based” (Phillips 108). Through promoting the Harry Potter film, it not only increases the commercial value of Harry Potter as a brand, but effectively influence the readership of Harry Potter as literacy or even a culture, especially among teenage readers.
Secondly, in terms of Harry Potter’s textuality as a children literature, it contains some certain characteristics which are able to hold kids to sit for hours in front the book. According to Sonja Fielitz, everyone has its own “interpretive strategies” differentiated from their age and culture (207). To fulfill the reading strategies of children, Rowling uses a series of methods including capital letters or italics to “symbolize a special emphasis on utterance” (208). Even more, she prefers to use language which “resembles comics” to describe characters’ “audio impressions” (208), which can help maintain the reading interest and passion of teenage readers.
In addition, the illustration including the choice of cover image is also important for children reader’s selecting. As Phillips states, the cover of a book “may echo the book’s plot or characters…evoke a feeling in the reader, with a suggestion of danger, passion or mystery.” (19) A beautiful illustration does not win for its “descriptive qualities” but its “underlying graphic inventions” (Duvoisin 313). The illustration for children’s novels works with the inter-text together, which “drags” young readers into the story and increases “visual pleasures” while they enjoying the “reading or mental pleasures”. So do the illustrators themselves.
Work Cited
Beach, Sara Ann; Willner, Elizabeth Harden. “The Power of Harry Potter.” World Literature Today Winter 2002: 102-106.
Bond, Ernst. L and Nancy L.Michelson. “Writing Harry’s World, Children Co-authoring Hogwarts.” Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter. Ed. Elizabeth E. Heilman. New York: Routledge. 2003. 309-328. Print.
Duvoisin, Roger. “Children’s Book Illustration: the Pleasures and Problems.” Only Connect: Reading on Children’s Literature. Ed. Sheila Egoff, G.T.Stubbs, and L.F.Ashley. Toronto: Oxford UP. 1980. 299-316. Print.
Eccleshare, Julia. “Most Popular Ever’: the Launching of Harry Potter”. Popular Children’s Literature in Britain. Ed. Julia Briggs, Dennis Butts and M.O.Grenby. Burlington: Ashgate, 2007. 287-300. Print.
Fielitz, Sonja. “Approaching Joanne.K.Rowling’s Child Reader and Postmodern Construction of Childhood”. Children’s Books and Child Readers, Construction of Childhood in English Juvenile Fiction. Ed. Christiane Bimberg and Thomas Kullmann. Aachen: Shaker Verlag, 2006. 200-214. Print.
Grenby, M.O. The Child Reader, 1700-1840. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print.
Lere, Seth. Children’s Literature : a Reader’s History, from Aesop to Harry Potter. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2008.
Morgensern, John. Playing with Books: a Study of the Reader as Child. Jefferson: McFarland, 2009. Print.
Phillips, Angus. “How Books are Positioned in the Market: Reading the Cover.” Ed. Matthuews, Nicole and Nickianne Moody. Judging a Book by its Cover, Fan, Publishers, and the Marketing of Fiction. Burlington: Ashagate, 2007. 19-30. Print.
Rich, Motoko. “Harry Potter has Limited Effect on Reading Habits.” New York Times July 11, 2007.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. London: Bloomsbury, 1997.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. London: Bloomsbury, 1998.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. London: Bloomsbury, 1999.
Zipes, Jack. Sticks and Stones: the Troublesome Success of Children’s Literature from Slovenly Peter to Harry Potter. New York: Routledge, 2001. Print.