The world of Harry Potter turns 20
Two decades later, J.K. Rowling’s series shows power of literature
In 1997, Phyllis Simon thought a book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone might be of interest to some of her customers after a co-worker read a small item in Publishers Weekly that American rights had been purchased for the book.
Simon ordered 200 copies to sell in her children’s bookstore — Kidsbooks — in Vancouver, a huge num- ber for an unproven author in a genre that was flailing.
“No one had the rights in Canada so they had to order it from the U.K. We were told, ‘You’re going to have to pay the freight on these books’ and we agreed,” Simon recalls.
“We hand-sold that book. We handed it to kids and said, ‘Read it, read it.’ ”
Millions of kids and adults, of course, did read it. And then they read the books that followed J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, which was first released in the U.K. on June 26, 1997.
“We saw our role as not preaching to anyone,” Simon says. “That’s the power of literature. Reading a book should make you a better human being, more empathetic, not speaking ill of other people.”
In the past two decades, Toronto bar owner Matt Rocks made life decisions based on a book he read as a 10-year-old.
“I went from being a non-reader to being a voracious reader because of that book,” says Rocks, co-owner of The Lockhart, a bar inspired by the series.
“It was my gateway into books and how I saw the world around me.”
The viewpoints of author J.K. Rowling, which she expresses often on social media, also had an impact on Rocks.
“As an adult, I realized she had built lessons into the books (with) the message of inclusivity,” Rocks says.
“There are easy parallels to draw with the rise of the pure-bloods (in the books). It’s not just south of the border. There was the rise of populist nationalism in Europe, in Brexit, what almost happened in France. If you love the books, you see the problems with that kind of thinking.”
During the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Republicans were tricked into purchasing posters showing Donald Trump next to what was mistakenly intended to be a motivational quote. “There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it.”
The line was taken from the first of the seven books in the series and spoken by Harry Potter’s nemesis, Voldemort. After Donald Trump’s inauguration, signs brandished at protest marches compared the president with the Dark Lord.
A University of Pennsylvania study released in July of last year found that the more devoted the Harry Potter fan, the lower their opinion of Trump.
His policies, according to political scientist Diana Mutz, who conducted the research, were widely viewed as being the opposite of the values that are core themes in the books: tolerance, respect for differences, opposition to violence and punitive reactions and a rejection of authoritarian rule.
“As does Voldemort, Trump portrays himself as a strongman who can bend others to his will, be they the Chinese government or terrorists,” Mutz wrote.
A social consciousness was built into the series, according to Jamie Broadhurst, who teaches a course on the marketing of Harry Potter at Simon Fraser University.
“J.K. Rowling was very clear with her own beliefs on issues like amnesty, the environment and the need for tolerance, and that had a real impact on a generation who grew up reading those books,” he says.
Broadhurst, who is the vice-president of marketing for Raincoast Books, which published the series in Canada when it first came out, says the deeply humane values in the books became embedded with readers — internalized through fiction and the creation of another world rather than preached by the author.
More than 11 million copies of the books were sold in Canada; 400 million sold worldwide.
As a bookseller, Simon notes that the passage of the last 20 years is easy to mark: The kids who lined up for the books grew up to become brides posing in front of her store window in their wedding dresses. Now, as parents, they bring their own children into the store.
The frenzy generated over each new Harry Potter book’s release also coincided with the Internet era, Simon said. Excited readers waiting in line were aware that other readers around the world were also waiting in lines at the same time.
Despite the intense loyalty of fans, the books weren’t universally loved. Some critics, notably Harold Bloom, loathed the books; others condemned the author as promoting witchcraft and magic. In 2000, Harry Potter books topped the American Library Association’s list for formally complainedabout books.
More recently, in February, former Harry Potter fans tweeted they were going to burn their copies of the books in response to Rowling’s Twitter posts about Trump.
Rocks, the Toronto bar owner, says he received his political awakening through reading the books, listening to the audio recordings and watching the movies.
“My philosophy and my politics come down to a belief that no one is a second-class citizen and that’s directly related to the books.”
He remembers the loneliness of moving from his home in Ireland to start a new life in Canada and, at night, unable to sleep, he listened to Harry Potter audio books over and over again until he could drift off.
Then he met a woman and, while she was not as devoted a fan, she sat beside him in a car on a long road trip to the East Coast and listened with him as they went through the series.
He still reads, still listens to and still believes in the lessons he learned from Harry Potter. What has changed, Rocks says, is that he knows he’s not alone anymore.