The Real Magic Of Harry Potter

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Younger readers sense that she knows their world and their tastes. Kids care about brands: a Nimbus 2000 broom is the best on the market, at least until the Nimbus 2001 is released. They like to solve her puzzles: they are tickled to see that Diagon Alley, the wizard mall, is of course laid out diagonally. They like a character who moves from being powerless to being magical to having powers even over other adults. Harry's being an orphan makes him both more vulnerable and independent in ways most 13-year-olds are not; he had to invent himself because his spirit was not likely to be gently formed by his odious aunt and uncle. Not having a regular family, kids say, is something many of them can relate to. Teachers in inner-city schools, where many troubled kids are bouncing through foster care, are stunned by the power of the books over their students. "Many of these kids have grown up without parents, but they still have to make moral choices in their lives," notes Ebony Thomas, 25, an English teacher at Cass Tech High School in Detroit. "Before, those choices might have been dictated by church, by family, by community; now you have to face that alone, and the choice lies within yourself. This is a generation that really needs Harry Potter."

There were already lots of books with unicorns and wizards in them before Harry came along, certainly lots of books about orphans searching for their roots and adolescents coming of age--which leaves the question of what Rowling has done differently. Unlike some buff and brawny superheroes, Harry has the look of a nerd but the heart of a hero. He is small but fast: the wand is mightier than the sword. "He's kind of like me," says Alex Heggen, 12, of Des Moines, who, like so many kids, sees some of himself in Harry and hopes to find more of Harry in himself. "He's just brave sometimes ... I've got black hair, I wear glasses, we're about the same height ... Wearing glasses and having braces--getting picked on is just your life. You have to deal with it."

Kids say that in her portrayal of the friendship between Harry, Ron and Hermione, Rowling shows an uncanny understanding of how adolescents deal with one another. "She gets almost everything right," says Ligia Mizhquiri, 12, from Chicago. "What happens [at Harry's school] happens to us. Some of us are popular. Some of us are not. Some of us get bullied. Some of us are bullies." Harry's friendship with Ron evokes every buddy movie ever made; the pattern is so familiar to kids that when word got out that a character would die in Book 4, children wrote to Rowling and begged her not to kill Ron off, because in the movies it's always the sweet best friend who dies. But into that familiar tree house Rowling inserts Hermione, infuriating at first, indispensable very soon, and the tone and tenor of their friendships ring true to a generation of kids for whom gender roles and relationships have been rearranged.