Just when we’re making some headway in The Secret Garden, I am asked about the Twilight novels. It’s a great question and deserves its own thread. Here is the question, my response, and an open floor for you all to say your piece. It won’t be the last time this subject comes up, I’m sure (I hope!).

MaggieMay: John, I know you have your hands full with Tales of BTB just coming out and all, but my daughter has moved full-swing into the Twilight series, so wondering if you have any positive thoughts about it? I’m reading it too, just, just to stay relevant… Since you had time/energy to bring up The Secret Garden, I would absolutely love commentary on Edward and Bella! thanks

MaggieMay, talk about hijacking a thread! Two quick Twilight comments before I get back to reading The Secret Garden and, more urgently, writing Harry Potter’s Bookshelf: [Read more…]

Josh Harvey, a good friend in Lexington, Virginia, sent me a Christmas gift this afternoon that he said I could share with the HogPro All-Pros here though it is only notes of an idea. In brief, there is suggestive evidence in the seven book canon that Ms. Rowling was heavily influenced by Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. Here are Mr. Harvey’s notes for your reflection, comment, correction, and amendment:

[I have been reading “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett to prepare for a musical production of same and I] wonder if there is more than just some incidental influence between Garden and Potter. Here are six points of correspondence:

Firstly, the book is about magic (all kinds of great quotes about it). Secondly, it was one of the greatest British-American crossover children’s books ever–in fact my edition from the Barnes and Noble Classics line mentions several times that its success (with its other predecessors by FHB) could be comparable only to the Harry Potter series in terms of their popularity. [Read more…]

Ms. Melissa Anelli has released a portion of her interviews with Ms. Rowling that were not included in Harry, A History at the Amazon Blog for her best-selling book. This “vault segment” is about Order of the Phoenix and Ms. Rowling’s thoughts about the fifth novel in the series. I found her comments about Harry being alone but comforted by a group in the battle at the Department of Mysteries interesting as well as her insistence that you have to write the story as it comes to you rather than the one you imagine people want to hear. [Read more…]

Mr. Prinzi, the webmaster and guru of The Hog’s Head, has written a book, Harry Potter and Imagination: The Way Between Two Worlds, which I could not be more excited about. It’s available now through Amazon.com or through Zossima.com (if you want it autographed).

As I said in my blurb for the book, “There is no more insightful commenter on the Harry Potter novels than Travis Prinzi.” I begged him to publish after first hearing him speak at Prophecy 2007 in Toronto. Why? His approach, his insights, and his verve were that exciting to me personally because they were so different from what I was doing and thinking and from what I had seen anyone else attempt. I know other serious readers who have heard him talk at conventions and pubCasts or read his comments at Hog’s Head feel the same way. There is nothing retread, stale, or ho-hum in what he writes; you’re going to be stretched and delighted when you read Travis Prinzi — and, if you’re like me, that’s exactly what you’re looking for in literary criticism.

There is already a reader review up at Amazon and I urge you to take a look. [Read more…]