Children's Literacy Practices and Preferences

Book excerpt: Over the past few decades there have been intense debates in education surrounding children’s literacy achievement and ways to promote reading, particularly that of boys. The Harry Potter book series has been received enthusiastically by very many children, boys and girls alike, but has also been constructed in popular and media discourses as a children’s, particularly a boys’, literacy saviour. Children’s Literacy Practices and Preferences: Harry Potter and Beyond provides empirical evidence of young people’s reported literacy practices and views on reading, and of how they see how the Harry Potter series as having impacted their own literacy. The volume explores and debunks some of the myths surrounding Harry Potter and literacy, and contextualizes these within children’s wider reading.