I'm watching on TV at the moment

[Roger Kettle]

Well, neither have I but it's pretty impressive that this woman has managed to get millions of kids worldwide to actually pick up a book.

Has she? Or were all these millions reading already anyway?

According to research--and anything that successful in the publishing business REALLY gets researched---a huge proportion of those who bought the books had never attempted to read anything that weighty (in size) before. Another sizeable chunk had never read ANY' kind of book at all.
Watch out for "Beau Peep and the Goblet of Dragons".

[Mince]

Maybe, but they weren't queueing outside bookstores waiting for the latest release, like they did for Goblet Of Fire, or whatever.

But perhaps they still did await new releases of books they enjoyed but not all at the same time or for the same book. I wonder how many who have read Harry Potter as their first book would have read books anyway and far better ones without Harry Potter being around.

The point is that not everyone likes the same thing. Different people enjoy different books. That millions of kids all queued for the Harry Potter books must be down more to the craze and hype than the fact that the books are good, and that in my opinion is not a good thing. I hope these readers try other and better authors now that Rowling has finished her series.

[Mince]

According to research--and anything that successful in the publishing business REALLY gets researched---a huge proportion of those who bought the books had never attempted to read anything that weighty (in size) before. Another sizeable chunk had never read ANY' kind of book at all.

And of that huge proportion did those who bought the book read it? And surely if before Harry Potter you asked every kid who bought a book whether they had read a book before, a huge proportion would say that they had not. After all, the younger the reader, the more likely it's their first book.

[The Peepmaster]

My bird's little lad of 11 is an avid reader of Harry Potter. It's a job to get him to tear himself away from it to eat a meal, or watch the telly. He's now graduated to wanting to read similar books by other authors. Whatever the catalyst was to get these kids to become enthusiatic about reading has to be a good thing. The popularity of Harry Potter has definitely played a huge part in this.

[Malc]

So there.

[Mince]

My bird's little lad of 11 is an avid reader of Harry Potter. It's a job to get him to tear himself away from it to eat a meal, or watch the telly. He's now graduated to wanting to read similar books by other authors. Whatever the catalyst was to get these kids to become enthusiatic about reading has to be a good thing. The popularity of Harry Potter has definitely played a huge part in this.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc: Eleven-year-old wants to read more books. This happened after reading Harry Potter. Therefore, Harry Potter was the cause of him reading more books.

Alternative: Children who are not interested in reading would not care to read Harry Potter. The eleven-year-old read Harry Potter so he is interested in reading. Therefore, he would have read more books whether or not Harry Potter existed.