The Harry Potter Generation: Essays on Growing Up with the Series ed. by Emily Lauer and Balaka Basu (review)

The Harry Potter Generation speaks to the impact Rowling's book series has had upon readers and serves as a good companion to Gierzynski and Eddy's Harry Potter and the Millennials. Lauer and Basu's prologue introduces a myriad of topics in quick succession, drawing comparisons among Harry Potter, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the works of C. S. Lewis, before turning to focus on the Harry Potter Phenomenon. The editors have organized this collection of essays to address the phenomenon from readers' perspectives, its impact upon cultural memory, and its use within educational settings. The essays in each section of the collection complement one another nicely and will hold wide appeal.

In "Yours to Keep," Vayo describes the franchise's impact on the lives of its film stars, discussing how Emma Watson's and Daniel Radcliffe's acting careers have evolved based upon their roles within the Potter film franchise, as Hermione Granger and Harry Potter respectively. Vayo notes how gender impacted their career trajectories and self-creation within the public sphere. McLeod and Payne's chapter turns its attention to Luna Lovegood and Neville Longbottom, examining these supporting characters within the book series and movies to assert the major impact the characters have had on fans.

In the chapter "Harry Potter and the Book Burners' Mistake," Lauer examines two of the six times that Harry Potter novels have been burned in protest. She explores the underlying ideology of burning books within historical contexts, noting that both willingness to burn and outrage at book burning draws upon the "shared belief in the power of books" (60). She then discusses the founding of the Harry Potter Alliance (HPA), a real-world organization that works for progressive social justice, citing the power of the book series to spur people into action. The convergence of the topics feels a bit forced, but since the HPA is not addressed in other essays, I welcomed its mention.

Yee's chapter on "The Disenchantment of Harry Potter" examines the battle between Harry and Voldemort as a conflict between magic and modernity, discussing how magic is treated in scholarship when contrasted with science and religion. She describes how Hogwarts provides official and standardized education contrasting this with Voldemort's pursuit of marginalized and unauthorized magic. She asserts that since education helps to shape the future of a society, the battle over Hogwarts is "a battle to save the modern world that Hogwarts stands for" (79).

Lohorn's "Cloaked in History" pairs nicely with Yee's preceding chapter. Lohorn examines magical heritage sites that would define the common experience of being a witch or wizard in Britain. She considers how industrial muggle technologies, such as trains, and clocks are able to interact with these magical locations while more recent technological advancements do not fare as well. She also examines the magical sites within Diagon Alley, and the memorials within Godric's Hollow as community institutions.

The following chapter, "Wizarding World Tourism," extends this thoughtful consideration of place to the muggle realm. Siler conducted a survey of 100 responders about visiting Harry Potter tourist sites to determine to what extent visiting such places was a numerous experience in terms of escapism, feeling connected, and experiencing an authentic wizarding adventure. He uncovered interesting ramifications in terms of how the responders' ages contributed to clear patterns of preferences for why they visited a Harry Potter site.

Urbanski examines how Harry Potter is represented on Tumblr in the chapter "Filling in Memory Gaps with Love." She explores how fans actively write between the lines of the franchise's canon, creating "headcanon" or a "private and personal mini-story" that "doesn't change the established narrative." Urbanski focuses on the stories shared by three Tumblr accounts and categorized the stories according to the content they explored: the events in the lives of characters between the conclusion of the battle for Hogwarts and the...