>>7292123I might be wrong in applying my experiences as a child growing up in australia to the world but here goes. To be honest, the most striking thing about the harry potter series was the focus on magic, uniqueness, friendship and hardship. Again, this might only fit Australia, but looking back, the childrens television and books of the time were extremely bland. For example, if there was magic, it was either the protagonists imagination or a dream, if there was uniqueness, the thing that they discovered was extremely dull and essentially nothing. Than came Harry Potter which presented the image of finding out that you were unique and special, that there was an entire world and it felt REAL to me. Harry Potter was the first children's novel in Australia which did not aspire to document the middle-class daily drudgery and instead sought to inspire it's readers with magic and fantasy. It honestly felt far more real than the middle-brow 'realistic' shit that adults were peddling onto me as a very young child.
