Carol: I suppose it might be said that we get the cultural sensations that we deserve. And sometimes, at least, the sensations can be healthy. When the Narnia movie came out a while back, it was something of a cultural phenomenon–maybe not on the level of Harry Potter, but pretty darn big. (In 2005, it actually very slightly outperformed that year’s HP flick, at least domestically.) It certainly sparked a lot of interest in Lewis in my home. We even have a cat named Lucy.

A whole literature course devoted to Potter strikes me as overdoing it, but putting Potter on the syllabus of a class on children’s lit or fantasy lit seems appropriate.