Comic Relief: Quidditch Through the Ages. Albris. Archived from the original on 26 July 2008 . Retrieved 7 September 2008. Liu, Jonathan H. (13 February 2013). "New Harry Potter Covers by Kazu Kibuishi". Wired. Archived from the original on 12 July 2015 . Retrieved 6 July 2015. Cassy, John (16 January 2003). "Harry Potter and the hottest day of summer". The Guardian. London: Guardian News and Media Limited. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013 . Retrieved 27 September 2008.

Michael Rosen, a novelist and poet, held the opinion that the books were not suited for children, as they would be unable to grasp the complex themes. Rosen also stated that "J. K. Rowling is more of an adult writer." [111] The critic Anthony Holden wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was negative – "the Potter saga was essentially patronising, conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain", and he speaks of "a pedestrian, ungrammatical prose style". [112] Ursula K. Le Guin said, "I have no great opinion of it [...] it seemed a lively kid's fantasy crossed with a ' school novel,' good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited." [113] By contrast, author Fay Weldon, while admitting that the series is "not what the poets hoped for", nevertheless goes on to say, "but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose". [114]Rozhon, Tracie (21 April 2007). "A Brief Walk Through Time at Scholastic". The New York Times. p.C3. Archived from the original on 16 April 2009 . Retrieved 21 April 2007. Richer, Stephen (14 July 2011). "Debunking the Harry Potter Antisemitism Myth". Moment Magazine. Archived from the original on 27 November 2022 . Retrieved 30 September 2022. Person of the Year 2007 Runners-up: J. K. Rowling". Time. 23 December 2007. Archived from the original on 21 December 2007 . Retrieved 23 December 2007. Birch, Megan L. (7 August 2008). "Schooling Harry Potter: teachers and learning, power and knowledge". In Heilman, Elizabeth E. (ed.). Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (2nded.). Routledge.

Illustrator puts a bit of herself on Potter cover: GrandPré feels pressure to create something special with each book". Today.com. Associated Press. 8 March 2005. Archived from the original on 7 April 2020 . Retrieved 12 February 2007. Errington, Philip W. (2017). J.K. Rowling: A Bibliography. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4742-9737-0.Nel, Philip (2001). J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Novels: A Reader's Guide. New York: Continuum. ISBN 0-8264-5232-9. OCLC 47050453. O'Kane, Caitlin. Nashville school bans "Harry Potter" series, citing risk of "conjuring evil spirits". CBS News. Retrieved on 3 September 2019. "Rev. Reehil believes, 'The curses and spells used in the books are actual curses and spells; which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits into the presence of the person reading the text.' It is unclear if the movies have been banned, since they don't require children to read spells." Archived from the original Various religious fundamentalists have claimed that the books promote witchcraft and religions such as Wicca and are therefore unsuitable for children, [154] [155] [156] while a number of critics have criticised the books for promoting various political agendas. [157] [158] The series has landed the American Library Associations' Top 10 Banned Book List in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2019 with claims it was anti-family, discussed magic and witchcraft, contained actual spells and curses, referenced the occult/Satanism, violence, and had characters who used "nefarious means" to attain goals, as well as conflicts with religious viewpoints. [159]

Many of the motifs of the Potter stories such as the hero's quest invoking objects that confer invisibility, magical animals and trees, a forest full of danger and the recognition of a character based upon scars are drawn from medieval French Arthurian romances. [25] Other aspects borrowed from French Arthurian romances include the use of owls as messengers, werewolves as characters, and white deer. [25] The American scholars Heather Arden and Kathrn Lorenz in particular argue that many aspects of the Potter stories are inspired by a 14th-century French Arthurian romance, Claris et Laris, writing of the "startling" similarities between the adventures of Potter and the knight Claris. [25] Arden and Lorenz noted that Rowling graduated from the University of Exeter in 1986 with a degree in French literature and spent a year living in France afterwards. [25] The final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows became the fastest selling book in history, moving 11million units in the first twenty-four hours of release. [105] The book sold 2.7million copies in the UK and 8.3million in the US. [73] The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to the release of two editions of each Harry Potter book, identical in text but with one edition's cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults. [106] Book Gallardo, Ximena; Smith, C. Jason (2003). "Cinderfella: J. K. Rowling's wily web of gender". In Anatol, Giselle Liza (ed.). Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays. Praeger. ISBN 9780313320675. Bartlett, Kellie (6 January 2005). "Harry Potter's place in literature". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Archived from the original on 13 March 2023 . Retrieved 18 January 2023.

It even expanded into an empire of Harry Potter video games

See also: List of best-selling books Crowd outside a book store for the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a b King, Stephen (23 July 2000). "Wild About Harry". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 17 April 2009 . Retrieved 9 August 2010. ...the Harry Potter books are, at heart, satisfyingly shrewd mystery tales. Barnes, Brooks (8 April 2014). "A Makeover at Universal Studios Hollywood Aims at Disney". The New York Times. Universal City, California. Archived from the original on 12 September 2014 . Retrieved 12 September 2014.