Hi folks,

With everything going on in the world, I've been thinking a lot about the power of words, the power of fictional worlds, the sorts of representation kids do or don't see in popular media, and the effects that has on them as people. I saw this post being shared recently regarding the difficulty of separating the artist (in this case, JKR) from the art (HP/the Potterverse) and not only was it thought-provoking for me, but it lead to a pretty good conversation with my spouse about how we want to introduce our kids to Harry Potter. We still plan on reading these books with our kids, but maybe there's a conversation that needs to happen before or after certain things come up in the books, and I think it's good to think about that beforehand.

We also talked about what types of other media we want to use to make sure our kids are well-rounded, non-bigoted individuals. You know, hopefully. At least they won't see the status quo of fifty years ago as the default state of the universe. We talked about kids' books that feature female heroes (Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic, Alanna, etc.), diverse heroes (Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea series), or that try and showcase how their heroes develop empathy and grow as the storyline progresses (Robyn Hobbs' Farseer series) instead of hinging on exceptionalism.

I'm not looking to start a debate on HP canon or anything but I figured some of you might find this equally thought-provoking, so wanted to share. And if anyone has other recommendations for kids' lit I'm very, very interested in hearing your suggestions