regarding something on potteruses

This was posted on pottersues as a comment to an entry.
"I do know one mother who doesn't make her son read because "If it's any good it will be made into a movie anyway."

In all seriousness, this makes me want to cry and it makes me want to scream."

Here is my reply.

I'm going to join in the crying and screaming here. That's just plain sad.

Harry Potter is not a bad book to introduce young(er) readers to. It can help to give them a more wide view of mythological creatures and lore. This is almost essential if you ever intend on delving into more sophisticated fantasy-genre books.

This isn't something like Faust, it's a very simple and straightforward book. There aren't any strange sub-plots, and the story is very simply written.

To say that there's no point in reading because "it will be made into a movie anyway" is insanely stupid. Was anyone following Foxtrot last week? It was a wonderful example of the idiocy of LoTR (and other) fangirls. (Speaking personally, I've seen the movies and read some of the books. Therefore, I tend to not comment much on fanfiction for LoTR, as I do not consider myself qualified enough to know what I'm talking about. Yet, I do know what they left out, and Eowyn/Faramir saddens me, as I did read the Halls of Healing and loved it,) When I was younger, my parents would buy me almost any book I wanted (they still do to some extent-request a history on Eclipse, the horse, the race, and the awards, and you get it).

I was reading Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses Of Enchantment the other day. Now, the book happens to be on fairy tales, but he makes some good points in regards to them. He says that the reading of fairy tales should be encouraged, as it helps to broaden their minds (so to speak). The same can be said for books, letting a child read when young can help them to see things they wouldn't before. (On a side note, this is why I'm generally anti-Disney, they have robbed the original tales of most of their meaning.)

I truely mourn for these children. So many books have been made into movies that don't truely do justice to them (leave LoTR out). We're not going to have them read Dracula or Frankenstein because there are movies of them. Seeing Aladdin leaves so much of the whole story out. True, The Thousand and One Nights is a long saga, but still nice to know the framework of it. And then you have more contemporary books, Jurassic Park, and The Lost World, as well as Timeline.

We have Troy coming out soon, what do you think the chances are that the Iiliad will be warped by this?

(I'm also posting this in my journal, in case the discussion decides to go there, as it's a bit OT for this journal.)

(no subject)

Poor pug ate the cat food last night.

Now he needs to go out every few hours and has diarrhea.

This is not fun.