How Harry Potter Changed the World
This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. That means we’ve all spent the last two decades going to midnight release parties, rereading the series multiple times, and arguing about Snape. It’s a milestone fans are invited to participating B&N stores to celebrate Saturday, February 3, at 6 p.m., with Potter cosplay, games, trivia, and more. (Please contact your local store for event details.)
A reader will always remember their first introduction to Harry Potter’s world, whether they discover it on their own, have it read to them, or share it with their children. I first met Harry when I was seven years old, and my mom gave me Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. She thought it was just some new children’s book about wizards or something; she didn’t realize she was giving me not a book, but a lifestyle. She couldn’t have anticipated the countless Christmas lists comprised entirely of Harry Potter merchandise, the five consecutive Halloweens I went dressed as Hermione, or the nightly reading sessions during which I would beg her to read just one more chapter. (This went on until Goblet of Fire came out, at which point my literary appetite had reached “JUST STAY UP ALL NIGHT AND FINISH IT” levels, so we were forced to stop.)
To be fair, I never expected any of this, either. I didn’t mean to become obsessed to the point that thoughts of Hogwarts occupied my every waking hour; it just kind of happened. And I wasn’t alone in this. What neither my mom nor I knew at the time—what we couldn’t possibly have known—was the kind of influence Harry Potter would have not just on me, but on the world.
Sorcerer’s Stone came out in the United States on September 1st, 1998. Twenty years, nine movies, and six more main series books later, Harry’s world is such an integral part of our cultural consciousness that it’s difficult to imagine life without it, and harder still to overestimate its impact. The zeitgeist of the last two decades has been so influenced by the world J.K. Rowling created, it’s hard to imagine what might’ve happened if she had given up after her initial rejection by twelve different publishers.
And it’s not just that Harry Potter started as a successful children’s series and has now become an ever-expanding commercial empire—there’s also evidence that reading Harry Potter has actually made children grow up kinder. According to a study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, those who read the series tend to be more open-minded and empathetic, and less likely to hold prejudices against minority groups.
Furthermore, the series has produced what’s known in publishing circles as “the Harry Potter effect.” In the pre-Potter days, children’s books were short, sweet, and to the point. Following the success of the Boy Who Lived, however, books pointed toward young readers increased in length. Specifically, they became 173% longer in the last forty years, with most of that growth taking place during the last twenty. (Any guesses as to why? Go on. I’ll wait.)
So not only has Harry Potter made us better people, it also revolutionized children’s literature, consequently spreading that positive influence as far and wide as possible. It made us a generation of progressive readers.
But why did so many latch onto Harry Potter? What was it about this bespectacled boy wizard that got us all hooked? It’s because so many of us identified with him. While we may not have much in common with the Boy Who Lived on paper—hardly any of us defeated a Dark wizard in our infancy, nor have we attended wizard high school—most of us have some experience feeling belittled, betrayed, neglected. We have felt hopeless, jubilant, enamored with our own youthful cleverness. We’ve lost friends and faced bullies, experienced life and love, felt triumph and loss. We came of age with Harry. As Harry became older, wiser, disillusioned with the world, and ultimately more determined to make it better, so did we.
It’s the reason so many charities (Lumos, The Harry Potter Alliance) have cropped up in Harry’s name. It’s the reason so many of us losers, nerds, and outsiders found solace with Harry and with each other. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met—in line for the films, during conventions such as LeakyCon, at Universal Studio’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter—whose story matched mine. They started off as kids reading the book with their parents. Now it’s twenty years later, and some of those same people have kids of their own, who are begging them to read just one more chapter.
Discovering Harry Potter brought me such joy, but it also forced me to come to grips with the harsh truth of its intangibility. I’d been introduced to this rich world, this magical world, and I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how much it pained me to realize I would never go there, that it wasn’t real.
But if the last twenty years have taught us anything, it’s that the realness of Harry Potter is measured in community, in compassion, in wonder. The world of Harry Potter is just as real as the impact it has had on generations of reader. And if there’s one thing we all know to be true, it’s this: “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?”