Harry Potter and Christopher Lowell.
Who's Christopher Lowell?
Re: Harry Potter, a couple of years ago I decided to see what all the fuss was about, plus I have an idea on the back burner to write a childrens' book or two, dealing with - well, I don't want to get into details. I read 3 Potter books. I was really amazed after the first one how badly written they were - shallow, two dimensional, no charcter development at all, no good vs evil (supposedly there is, but it's just different teams), superficial, vain, appealing to the lowest element in the readers, etc.
What to speak of attracting children to nastiness. I actually couldn't finish the 3rd one. Bad content *and* execrable writing.