New Generations, New Book Series

My dad took me to see The Woman in Black tonight.  Of course the star of this horror film is Daniel Radcliffe, who most of the world knows as Harry Potter in the movies made from the very popular book series by J.K. Rowling.  The movie was really scary if you ask me so I attempted to lighten the mood (and make myself feel better) with quite a few Harry Potter references such as, "Come on Harry, Expecto Patronum that crap!!!" "Dad, he really needs his wand." 

Anyways, I got to thinking about how I grew up with Harry Potter.  I was about the same age as the characters when the first book came out and as I read each book I felt like I was literally growing up alongside Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  The books will always hold a special place in my heart, as well as the phenomenal movies that just came to an end this past year.  Therefore, I just think that all of the students I come across should absolutely love Harry Potter as well.  

I just came to the realization that this is not the case.  I am devastated.  If I really force myself to think about it the books came out years ago so it is quite rare to find young adolescents as excited about it as my friends and I were (and still are).  There are other book series replacing Harry Potter for the newer generation.  As an education major I do know what some of these new series are like Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Maze of Bones, etc.  I have yet to find a book series that even comes close to comparing to Harry Potter.  That being said, I guess I am a little biased, but my mind just cannot grasp that anything else I read is capable of surpassing it.  

So the whole point of this post is to say that as a new teacher, I need to read a lot more and do research about what is currently popular in the world of YA (young adult) literature.  I know that I read constantly and I did find a lot of new YA books during my classes in college, but trends are constantly changing.  Teachers owe it to their students to be familiar with what they're reading and be able to relate  to it.  

I sort of already do this, but I just wanted to make a point of how important it is to stay relevant and I just wanted an excuse to post about Harry Potter.  And express how depressed I am that an era has ended and the next generation doesn't share the same enthusiasm for the book series as mine did. :(  

FYI: I am still going to force encourage students to read Harry Potter and probably make them hope that they  love it as much as I do. :)