I guess you never read any classics. You must never have read any books by Robert Louis Stevenson or even Louisa May Alcott.
I guess kids now just read pabulum, so the Potter books compare more or less equally to what passes for juvenile literature today.
I grew up reading actual literature, so I see the Potter books differently - as shallow, two dimensional comic book style tripe with not a hint of any morality, upliftment, real mystery, empathetic characters, believable three dimensional (or even two) characters, or anything else that makes real literature literature.
To say that the Potter books have well developed characters is like saying that Britney Spears intelligence has an impact on world affairs.
BTTT
LJ, this is why you are my hero.
Or L.M.Montgomery or C.S.Lewis or Lloyd Alexander or George MacDonald or Mark Twain or Laura Ingalls Wilder or Madeline L'Engle or Ray Bradbury or...
I guess I see the Harry Potter books as a cookie for the mind. A treat that's fun to read. Sometimes we just want to relax and enjoy something without it needing to have any deep meaning. Of course, I probably defend it because I have been trying to write fantasy for some time now. LOL!
Just had to laugh at that one.
I've read Little Women and I thought that it was about 700 pages too long. My mom and I read it together when is was 8, and it end up taking us a year and a half to get through. Some chapters of that book are extremely boring. In fact, the only children's books from the late 19th, early 20th century that I actually liked were the Secret Garden and Anne of Green Gables. All the other books were preachy Sunday school lessons (Little Women) or very negative and depressing (Black Beauty).
As for newer classics, I think that Charlotte's Web is one of the best children's books ever written and was (and still is) one of my favorites. I also love some of the older Newberry books that I read when I was in 3rd/ 4th grade, and that are now considered "classics." (Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry; Caddie Woodlawn; Jacob Have I Loved; The Bridge to Terebitha; The Door in the Wall; The Whipping Boy; The Mixed Up Files of Miss Basil E. Frankweiler; etc). However, when I was growing up, there were no good children's books being published, outside of Lois Lowry and Cynthia Voight (for junior high kids); in fact, my teachers generally taught us books from the 60s and 70s because the current "critically acclaimed" books were so boring. Now, kids get to read Harry Potter (which is better than 99% of the books written for adults), and because of those books' success, the whole youth literary market has improved.