I’ve believed for years that JK Rowling’s superb Harry Potter novels are some of the greatest works of fiction we’ve seen in years – and now a new survey suggests that reading them makes us better people too! The books are imaginative, dark, captivating, brave and hopeful. Over the seven stories, from that infamous stone to the deathly hallows, Rowling created a whole new world and got a whole new generation of children (and adults!) into reading again.
What Rowling did, however, was create a very real world within this new one – one which readers have clearly found they could relate to their everyday lives. A new survey suggests that reading these books – and connecting with Harry as the central character – makes us more tolerant, compassionate people. Through the general divide and intolerance between ‘pure bloods’ and those of non-magical lineage (‘mudbloods’ is the insult used for them in the books), treatment of house elves and the constant battle between good and evil, the exploration of all these themes seems to make the readers more tolerant of groups like immigrants and LGBT people. It seems reading these books makes people want to learn more and seek better understanding of groups they are perhaps unfamiliar with, rather than judge them.
Is there nothing these books can’t do?
The Greatest Magic of Harry Potter: Reducing Prejudice published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
Source: Independent
