The Real Magic Of Harry Potter

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Hermione would be a pretty familiar stereotype as well if she were just "the smart one." But Rowling also makes her resourceful and at times the toughest. "Hermione ignores a lot," says Ellis O'Connor, 10, in Evanston, Ill. "Ignoring while people are teasing is very, very important, because if you don't ignore them, they'll get on your nerves more, and it will be worse." She knows something about being teased because of a developmentally delayed older brother whom the other kids call retarded. Kids who get mocked because they don't have cool clothes find a soul mate in Ron. "If you took all three and put them into a blender, you'd get me," says Ryan Gepperth, 12, of Chicago. "I like to try new things, like Harry. I love reading, like Hermione. And I have problems of my own, like Ron," says Ryan, a husky boy with tousled brown hair. "Ron gets made fun of a lot because he has a lot of brothers and sisters and he comes from a poor family. The other kids don't like him because of that."

Rowling creates a bridge for kids to cross from her magical world to their own, built out of rules and constraints that both share. The very existence of Hogwarts School, the training academy for young wizards, is a testament to the reality that learning still takes time and patience. There's no spell that fills one's head with knowledge; the best Hermione can manage in Book 3 is the Time Turner, to give her more hours to study. The Weasleys, Ron's family, are still poor--and any world in which a family as hardworking, loving and generous as theirs still struggles to put food on the table is, well, a lot like our own. Mrs. Weasley can cast a spell to make dirty dishes clean themselves, but she can't create new kitchenware out of thin air. Rowling has created a world in which a boy can fly on a broom, talk to snakes and grow gills like a fish, but he can no more easily cope with his crushing sadness about his dead parents than any other child. "She mixes the real-life struggles in with the imaginary, magic struggles," says Casey Brewer, 15, of Longwood, Fla. "Harry and his friends have to think through the obstacles in life the same as they have to think through an obstacle that's a three-headed dog. It's, like, inspirational."

Inspirational, but mercifully not perfect. Wizards have troubles and egos and envy and ratty robes they are embarrassed to wear. Harry is capable of jealousy and insensitivity. He breaks rules and doesn't tell grownups things it would plainly be in his interest to reveal. He gets into trouble. ("If he didn't, you wouldn't have all those pages to read," notes Zack Ferleger, 12, of Encino, Calif.) Hermione may be smart, but she can be rigid; Hagrid is loving, but to a fault when it comes to horribly scary beasts. Ron is loyal but insecure. Rowling loves her characters and invites readers to love them, not just despite their flaws but because of them. Since one's flaws loom large in adolescence, that is quite a healing potion.