Lavishly illustrated ‘Potter’ starts over
Eighteen years after he got his start at Hogwarts, Harry Potter remains the popular kid.
His enduring appeal has been fueled not only by the seven-book J.K. Rowling series but also by a regular unveiling of additional products as well as attractions.
Released this month was a lavishly illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the first book in the series.
The large-format, 246-page unabridged novel (offered simultaneously in Britain) has more than 100 full-page illustrations and, on every other page, smaller pictures — all by British artist Jim Kay.
The publisher, Scholastic, plans to release the six other books annually, one at a time.
Kay has been enlisted to illustrate them all, said Cheryl Klein, executive editor of Arthur A. Levine Books, the Scholastic imprint in charge of the Harry Potter books in the United States.
Whether the others will be priced the same as the first ($39.99) — each of the final three books, without illustrations, has 700-plus pages — isn’t yet known, she said.
The week of its release, the first book — introducing the young wizard and following his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry — ranked first on the New York Times list of children’s series and seventh on the USA Today list of all books.
Children as young as kindergartners are being introduced to the stories, said Klein, who also noted that many longtime devotees are drawn to the illustrated book.
“We’ve seen huge enthusiasm from existing Harry Potter fans — kids who were the same age as Harry when he got his letter from Hogwarts and who grew up with him,” she said.
Sally Oddi, owner of Cover to Cover in the Clintonville neighborhood, has sold plenty of
copies to 20- and 30somethings.
Among them: Shelly Beaty, who fell in love with Harry Potter while in her 20s.
“I had no intention of reading the books, but I picked one up on vacation . . . and couldn’t put it down,” said the 38year-old, a nurse at the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital at Ohio State University.
More than a decade later, she has collected all of the books, the audio series, two sets of the movies and various collectible items.
She also plans to buy the new illustrated edition.
Pregnant with her first child, Beaty intends to introduce Harry Potter to her daughter in time.
“The biggest thing for me is how the writing evolves over the series,” she said. “It starts out simpler in the first book and then just becomes more and more eloquent. And I love the parallels between Harry Potter and classic literature and mythology.”
The Potter series indeed represents a phenomenon: More than 450 million copies of the books (in 78 languages) have been sold, and the films based on the books have grossed more than $7 billion worldwide.
The Columbus Metropolitan Library has more than 1,000 copies of the Potter books — a level not reached by most books, especially those for children, said selection librarian Jennifer Young, who purchases children’s fiction and picture books for the system.
The library has 62 copies of the new illustrated edition, she said, and “I’m thinking I’m going to have to buy more.”
Besides follow-up Rowling books ( Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages and The Tales of Beedle the Bard) — not to mention her website (www.pottermore.com), with its character revelations and updated information — more is on the way:
The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios Hollywood in Los Angeles — similar to the existing theme park in Orlando, Fla. — will open in the spring.
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a play in two parts by Jack Thorne and with an original story by Rowling, will premiere on July 30 in London. The production focuses on a grown-up Harry, employed by the Ministry of Magic, and his youngest son, Albus.
Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them —a film scripted by Rowling, directed by David Yates and starring Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne — is due in November 2016. The movie is intended to launch what will be at least a trilogy, with the others scheduled for 2018 and 2020.
“People — children and adults — just want to keep returning to that wizarding world, in all sorts of ways,” Klein said.
The Potter books are “the best-selling books of all time in the world. . . . There is not another thing like it,” said children’sbook expert Anita Silvey, former editor-in-chief of The Horn Book Magazine.
She compared Rowling’s popularity to that of Charles Dickens in his day and said the Potter books deserve “classic” status.
Of her graduate classes in children’s literature at Simmons College in Boston, Silvey said: “My students are those who stood in line at midnight to get the next installment. When we start talking about Harry Potter, it’s like an electric current goes through the class.”
With a fantasy setting whose themes parallel real life, Rowling appeals to adults as well as children, boys as well as girls, Silvey said.
“I think Rowling did something brilliantly that early-20th-century authors like Frances Hodgson Burnett and Rudyard Kipling did: She wrote something that can be shared with the whole family.”