What books do you think Rowling's are derivative of? She acknowledges her debt to classical lit (using British sense of classical, as in Roman classics) and I can't say I see HP as being directly drawn from any modern sources. Sure, the ideals are all there, if we're talking Campbellian archtypes.
Have you ever heard of Harold Bloom? No, of course, not. He is a professor at Yale and arguably the most distinguished American literary critic living today. So, if you won't listen to me, maybe you'll hear what old Harold has to say about Harry Potter in this July 11, 2000 article from the Wall Street Journal entitled "Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes." (I love that title. I love Harold Bloom!)
The article is definitely worth reading in its entirety (Bloom is always a pleasure to read), but let me share just a little of it:
I have just concluded the 300 pages of the first book in the series, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," purportedly the best of the lot. Though the book is not well written, that is not in itself a crucial liability. It is much better to see the movie, "The Wizard of Oz," than to read the book upon which it was based, but even the book possessed an authentic imaginative vision. "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" does not, so that one needs to look elsewhere for the book's (and its sequels') remarkable success. Such speculation should follow an account of how and why Harry Potter asks to be read.The ultimate model for Harry Potter is "Tom Brown's School Days" by Thomas Hughes, published in 1857. The book depicts the Rugby School presided over by the formidable Thomas Arnold, remembered now primarily as the father of Matthew Arnold, the Victorian critic-poet. But Hughes' book, still quite readable, was realism, not fantasy. Rowling has taken "Tom Brown's School Days" and re-seen it in the magical mirror of Tolkein. The resultant blend of a schoolboy ethos with a liberation from the constraints of reality-testing may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of children and their parents desire and welcome at this time. (emphasis added).
Not to brag (too much), but my man Harold goes on to point out precisely what I have been saying on this thread:
One can reasonably doubt that "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" is going to prove a classic of children's literature, but Rowling, whatever the aesthetic weaknesses of her work, is at least a millennial index to our popular culture. So huge an audience gives her importance akin to rock stars, movie idols, TV anchors, and successful politicians. Her prose style, heavy on cliche, makes no demands upon her readers. In an arbitrarily chosen single page--page 4--of the first Harry Potter book, I count seven cliches, all of the "stretch his legs" variety.How to read"Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone"? Why, very quickly, to begin with, perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do. is there any redeeming education use to Rowling? Is there any to Stephen King?
Does this answer your question, my young friend?
May I leave you with a parting thought from the wonderful Ursula Le Guin's comments in the UK Guardian last year in re: the Harry Potter:
Good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited. (emphasis added)