Melissa Anelli has a few bon mots from her Rowling interviews that she didn’t include in Harry: A History. She has been sharing these online in periodic installments at the book’s website on a page called “The Vault.” This week’s entry is, sadly, Ms. Rowling and Miss Anelli comparing notes about how demanding and rude readers can be. I say “sadly” because, in revisiting here the unfortunate “delusional” comments made by Emerson Spartz and Ms. Rowling about Harry-Hermione shippers in the 2005 Leaky-Mugglenet interview, I’m left with the impression that both women think that the outrage expressed by the “deluded” had nothing to do with Mr. Spartz’ comments and Ms. Rowling’s agreement with same. [Read more…]

So is Global Warming the Environmental Apocalypse we were told and these nay sayers (in great numbers) the undead mob of Rita Skeeters? Or were the Gore-inspired crowd of Global Doomsayers a bunch of Latter Day Chicken Littles?

Either way, if you’re not skeptical about anything you read in the media these days (“Governor Palin strangles Turkeys in Post-Election Melt-down!”), you missed out on one of the sharper satirical thrusts of the Potter novels.

Please share below your favorite instance of popular acceptance of undeniable truth presented by reporters overdosing on SOMA, “truth” that turned out to be claptrap. (Please don’t bring up the most recent election. We have yet to see how that will play out.)

Some of you may have seen the young man in the creative YouTube feature lip-synching the Moosebutter four part a capella tribute to John Williams and Star Wars. You should know the same singing group did a Harry Potter song before the release of Deathly Hallows with remarkable verbal percussion — and that it is really delightful (if you’re an Orbison fan, at least). Enjoy!

I missed The Lion and the Mouse: The battle that reshaped children’s literature (Jill Lepore July 21, 2008) when it ran this summer in The New Yorker but I recommend it to you for two reasons: [Read more…]

• She is a best-selling author of children’s stories who has sold over 400 million books, some say as many as 600 million books.

• Children when polled as recently as 2008 chose her as their favorite author (Costas Book Awards).

• Though famous for writing boarding school stories, she was never a boarding or public school student herself. But she was chosen as “Head Girl” of the school she did attend.

• After school, she was a teacher, had a failed marriage, but remarried with custody of the first marriage’s offspring.

• Her best books are about the adventures a group of children have, stories that involve a mystery, boarding school life, or a magical event or ability. All of them have a firm moral or Christian message.

• She had a problematic relationship with her father; her mother was no longer part of her life after she left home.

• She developed a unique way of communicating with her readers without newspaper or media intermediaries.

• Despite the Christian element in stories, implicit or explicit, she was not religious in a devotional way, but remained a member of the Church of England.

• Her books set records for number of translations (more than 90 foreign languages) and are famous and beloved by children and adults around the world, especially India, Japan, and Germany.

• The girl hero in her best-selling adventures is a swotty tom-boy the author admitted was modeled after herself.