The Harry Potter series is not without its critics, as anyone who reads the popular press, may know. One of the most famous critiques of the Harry Potter books is the July 7th, 2003, New York Times editorial written by the award-winning British writer, A.S. Byatt, who also wrote a series, whose main character also had the surname, "Potter". This editorial, entitled "Harry Potter and the Childish Adult" (CCPL Database access instructions) engendered a firestorm of contraversy and received an equally famous rejoinder by Charles Taylor in the online literary journal, Salon, called "A.S. Byatt and the Goblet of Bile". Another editorial response to Byatt, published in the India Times, titled, "The Magic of Harry Potter" by Rani Dharker, illustrates the trans-cultural appeal of this series to adults and children.
This brings up the point, "What is good reading?" S.R. Ranganathan, a famous native of India, himself, and one of the seminal figures of modern library history and practice, proposed five laws of library science, listed below. Laws 2 and 3 apply to this discussion and perhaps suggest that good reading is in the mind of the reader.
1. Books are for use.
2. Every person his or her book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. The library is a growing organism.
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