Severian mentions in a post on a book report about a book about the nineties his relationship to the vaunted Harry Potter books:
The Harry Potter books are influential because they somehow made it ok for grownups to get weirdly, creepily obsessed with kids’ books. You know why I haven’t read Harry Potter? Because I’m not twelve years old. It’s that simple. If you’re reading them with your twelve year old kids, fine. But if you’re not — if you’re reading them for the story — then you need to seriously reevaluate your life choices, comrade.
I’ve said this myself since the 1980s.
Except I read other children’s books from time to time that I missed, such as Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates or the Little House series which I finished up a year or so back.
Why do I read those classics but not the more “modern” classics (::spit::) like the Harry Potter books?
Because a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
I read the first three one summer when I worked as a campus chaplain because the building with my office was being renovated and we were off for about 10 days. A used bookstore was about five blocks away and the owner would be pretty good with me on trades when he saw that I returned books in about the same condition I received them.
I liked those three well enough but when I looked at #4 I could tell Rowling was beginning to match her style to the advancing years of her protagonists and the books were losing some of their Narnia-esque atmosphere. They were also beginning to bloat as the publisher realized parents would pay more money for the larger book and a bigger book deterred no determined youthful reader. So I read it but then left #5, #6 and #7 for others.