J.K. Rowling, the beloved Harry Potter series author, established the best-selling book series of all time. Her success, however, was not guaranteed. When she wrote the first book, Rowling was a single mother without a job and receiving state assistance. However, she conquered the literary world with a little inspiration from unexpected places.
Here is how J.K. Rowling’s personal life has influenced the Harry Potter books:
Words Of Wisdom
Rowling, who was up in England, has spoken adoringly about books from her youth, some of which are obscure to most American readers. She specifically mentions The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, a 1946 tale about an orphaned girl who, along with a herd of supernatural animals, must learn the illustrious history of her cousin’s enigmatic estate. Because the protagonist is unassuming, which delighted Rowling greatly because she “was a pretty unassuming child,” it spoke to her.
Rowling also refers to E. Nesbit’s 1899 book, The Story of the Treasure Seekers, about six orphans who must search for their fortunes. But, again, I primarily relate with her as a children’s author. “By some lucky fluke, I recall exactly what I felt and thought at 11,” Nesbit remarked. That spoke to me.
It’s obvious that Rowling’s early reading experiences helped her transition into the world of Harry Potter, a world of tremendous imagination but also one in which children’s feelings, thoughts, and everyday worries are incredibly real and recognisable. As a result, her works are enchanting, as her millions of readers, including us, can attest.
Wonderful Mum
According to Rowling, she read “absolutely anything” as a child. Rowling claims she still finds time to bury her nose in a book nowadays despite juggling family obligations with work pressures like many moms. She stated in O, The Oprah Magazine, that she reads while drying her hair and taking a bath. When I’m in the restroom, I read. I read everywhere I can go with one hand.
Before reading the Harry Potter series to her children, Rowling claims she had intended to wait until they were at least seven years old. However, Jessica’s classmates began enquiring about Quidditch and forthcoming plot aspects when she was only six years old. Rowling said, “She had no idea what they were talking about.” Finally, Rowling gave in because she reasoned, “I’m excluding her from this significant part of my life, and it’s making her feel outside me. She got Harry Potter-obsessed due to my reading them to her.”
David was so engrossed when she subsequently read the first book to him that he begged his mother to make him his book of magic spells. Rowling said to Oprah, “It wasn’t because I wrote the novels that he wanted it. Any child would inquire of their mother, “It was because I was his mother.”
The Literacy Tactics
Nowadays, books are dying due to the prevalence of video and computer screens. The Harry Potter phenomenon, however, indicates that all it takes to pique a child’s interest in reading is to locate the good book he’ll take to bed with a flashlight so he can sneak in just one more chapter.
Harry Potter has served as that book for many kids. Academic research supports that. Three out of four children reported reading a Harry Potter book piqued their interest in reading other books in a 2008 national study.
Well, the Harry Potter series gets significantly more complex as it goes along, with difficult subjects like bigotry and mortality. In The Darkness, Rowling has been transparent about how much of it is autobiographical.
Although she was unaware of it when she started writing the series, she revealed to Oprah Winfrey that making Harry an orphan and detailing his future encounters with death were ways for her to cope with the passing of her mother, who passed away from multiple sclerosis when Rowling was 20. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to imply that Harry Potter wouldn’t exist if she hadn’t passed away. Because she passed away, the books are what they are.
Her problems with depression in her twenties served as inspiration for the Dementors, one of the terrifying monsters in the franchise: “It’s so difficult to express to someone who’s never been there because it’s not melancholy. I understand sorrow. To be sad is to feel sad and to cry. But what hollows out the sensation is that chilly absence of feeling. The Dementors are exactly that.