Jez Higgins

Freelance software grandad
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Harry Potter and the Qualified Recantation -

When I was eight, Miss Beale, old and grumpy with white curly hair, taught me how to write stories, good and clear, which would earn me house points.

"Good stories," she articulated, slowly and clearly, "Must have lots of unusual, vivid describing words, including adjectives, which come before naming-words, and adverbs, which come after doing-words."

...

I think that children like the Harry Potter books because they are written in the style in which bad teachers tell conformist children constitutes "good writing". Eight-year-olds read J.K Rowling and think "I could do that too."


Mr Rilstone goes on rather longer than strictly necessary, but rather saves me the trouble of bothering to write down why I find it rather incredible that actual grown-up adults think Harry Potter is so fantastic. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why children like it either. I'm fairly sure that Harry Potter won't hook Daniel in the way, for example, Fergus Crane, The Scarecrow and His Servant, or The Boy, The Wolf, The Sheep, and The Lettuce have.



Jez Higgins

Freelance software grandad
software created
extended or repaired

Follow me on Mastodon
Applications, Libraries, Code
Talks & Presentations

Hire me
Contact

Older posts are available in the archive or through tags.

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