Despite what has been dubbed the “Harry Potter Effect” — which credits J.K. Rowling’s blockbuster book series with turning Game Boy addicts into lifelong readers — reading is in serious decline among teens nationwide, according to a forthcoming federal study.
A decade of Potter-mania peaks at 12:01 a.m. Saturday, when 12 million copies of the seventh and last book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” go on sale in the United States. Thus far, the books have sold 325 million copies in 64 languages worldwide.
But as educators assess the phenomenon that lured millions of young readers to tackle longer books, they find that Harry Potter alone could not stem the decline in reading rates.
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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/15/MNGN7R0Q1N1.DTL&hw=
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July 22, 2007 at 1:43 pm |
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