Found it on: Wizard City

Original sources: Moreover and HPANA


Most children complain about their textbooks being boring, which is easy enough to understand. So why is it a different story when it comes to reading Harry Potter even if the book is 800 pages?

Today's textbooks represent a major achievement in visual design. They glitter with charts, photographs, drawings and advice. But they are boring.

I asked a major publisher why the textbooks are so heavy with graphics. He said, "American kids don't like to read anymore. They are so accustomed to watching television and the Internet that a book can't hold their attention without lots of visual stimuli."

The success of the Harry Potter series shows that this assumption is wrong. American youngsters will read books that are exciting and well written, regardless of their graphics. They devour the Potter books because author J.K. Rowling has infused them with classic themes drawn from legend and myth, as well as biblical imagery. Like J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books, Rowling's books resonate with suspense, mystery, intrigue and showdowns between the forces of good and evil.

In contrast to the gripping tales told by Rowling and Tolkien, our history textbooks skim lightly above the surface of events, ignoring the fact that history is first of all a story. The history books excel at mentioning vast numbers of events, people, and ideas and compressing them into short summaries of a page or two. The drama of history and biography is sacrificed to the imperative of "covering" everything in a single volume. Clashes of good and evil have been banished, replaced by pedestrian prose and thumbnail sketches.

Thanks Moreover and HPANA