"Dangerous?" said Harry, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"And it is, in fact, a dangerous book capable of posession, definitely representative of a sort of subtext in Harry Potter about the dangers of books--an interesting subtexts, given some parental fears about the series, and also given their genre (children's lit first, school story second). The subtext is also interesting because literacy is literally everywhere in the novels. And where there is literacy, apparently, one will find dangerous books. That burn out your eyes. Or make you wish your eyes had been burned out, most likely!
"You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated--Dad's told me--there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a SOrcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander aroud with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And--"
"All right, I've got the point," said Harry. (230-231)
Sunday, June 30, 2013
A Literacy Moment: Courtesy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Every now and then, I come across a literacy moment that is too good to simply gloss over while reading. I may not have something specific to say about it, but as the moments accumulate, a pattern might emerge. I have been re-reading the Harry Potter books from the beginning--slowly, and without a particular purpose--and I cam across this little gem, well-worth sharing!:
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7 comments:
Interesting moment.
I just finished a kid book with an interesting literacy moment in it-- I've started noticing them thanks to you. My new project is to try to read a Newbery Medal book a month. Just because Cat reminded me I haven't read very many. So the book was The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman. A wandering scholar who is compiling an encyclopedia teaches the heroine how to read indirectly by pretending he's teaching her cat. It's a nice little method of circumventing her resistance.
That's a very nice one! I have heard of that one!! I'll have to add it to my to-read list! (Formally; it's already there informally.) You can imagine that a portrayal of resistence in literature is right up my alley!! :)
You remind me--I need to write about literacy in Hunger Games!!
Oh yes, very much up your alley. :)
It was an interesting little book. I'm kind of fascinated with midwifery, which is odd since I'll never have a natural delivery. One of my roommates after grad school actually has a history MA from Trinity College in Dublin. Her thesis was on medieval midwifery.
That must have been a fascinating topic! I can understand the appeal of the topic, definitely.
It's good thing I checked in the SPAM filter. Apparently, your last comment didn't feel *real* to Blogger!!
Oh dear. Blogger, what did I do to offend you?
Ah, punctuation. I read this,
"Oh, dear Blogger, what did I do to offend you?"
And then I looked and saw that it was from you, Melanie, and I reread the sentence(s). :D
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