Rightly said; I agree.

Barry Cunningham. nicely done!

Kewl, second! Ya, I'd agree, definately not ur typical kid's books, but that's one of the reasons it's so awesom!

I agree, This is really well said.

funny, reminds me of when i first read hp

I always laugh when I think of the other publishers who turned JKR down. They must be kicking themselves right now...

I can't believe anyone would turn it down but thanks Barry Cunningham!

That was a really cool thing he said. Cheers to Barry Cunningham!

Yeah, it is hard to believe that people read it and didnt like it! its a good thing JKR kept trying!

thank goodness for that dude

Oh God, I love hp, it´s just magic lol And it´s nice because it´s different... it´s GREAT!... even more than that

I agree. Harry Potter is def. not average .... and um well I love it

I very much agree. HP is not a typical children's book.

This was SO awesome and I totally agree. I'm 16 at the moment, and I've literally grown up with Harry Potter. The children (and now teenagers) of my time don't want or need the sissy fairy tails with sappy endings. It's not what happens in real life nowadays. We needed to be told the truth in a certain way, and this was a great way of doing it. Besides, it is a great story... Barry Cunningham, you made a very good choice.

thats is so cool...Barry Cunningham your awesome....every time i think of the other publishers that turned her down i laugh because i think of what they are saying now...lol...i

cool... I can't believe that any of the publishers turned potter down. They must regret that now :)

Oh, I love that! :)

That just proves it, doesn't it? Never give up in what you believe in. If Jo had given up trying to publish her book after all those rejections HP wouldn't be here today, and none of us would have been able to have enjoyed it. Absolutely inspiring! Never ever give up on your dreams, no matter how hard you struggle, because anything is possible! :) It's like Harry, in how he struggles and battles Voldimort, yet he never gives up, because he believes that good will always prevail. All it takes is for one person to believe in you. Good on you Barry Cunningham. I believe he deserves a huge round of applause for his brilliant, life changing decision. *claps loudly and cheers*

Very well said. Well done, Barry Cunningham!!

wow, wouldnt that be awesome to be the one who discovered JK Rowling??? i bet its the best choice she ever made

It really irritates me when people praise Harry Potter by downing children's literature. I think Potter is very much traditional--I read several books as a child that reminded me in my teenaged state of our bespectacled, thick haired hero. I love Harry Potter as much as everyone else. But why must we tear things down when bringing Rowling's particular style up? Rowling piggy-backed on numerous themes and motifs that are traditional children's reading fare. And she did an amazing job of it. I don't think Harry Potter is average. But that doesn't mean a hundred other stories out there are average either. This reeks of the Times article put out in honor of Book Six.

Well said! To me the Harry Potter books are a blessing!

BARRY CUNNINGHAM ROX MY SOX!!! although there are alot of children's literature books that are awesome, Harry Potter cannot be counted among them. not because the books aren't any good(far from that!), but because they are so much more than just part of a child's reading list! besides that, barry cunningham pretty much summed it up. LONG LIVE HARRY POTTER!!!

I completely agree with what he says about childrens books and i'm VERY glad that the night he saw that, he thought it would be a good choice.. because otherwise our lives would be drastically different! (and horrible..) without harry

While I would probably not put books 4, 5, and 6 in the category of "children's books" I would place them in YA fiction. I would put the first three in the children's category, and that is what Barry Cunningham is referring to. How, may I ask, is Harry Potter different from other children's literature. Is Ella Enchanted not "a story of bravery and danger and adventure but [told] with great humor?" How about Terry Pratchett's brilliant satire? The Rats of NIMH? Chronicles of Narnia? The Earthsea Trilogy? His Dark Materials? Redwall? Donna Jo Napoli's remaking of famous fairy tales? George McDonald's impressive array of stories? Roald Dahl? Robert Louis Stevenson? Alice In Wonderland? Need I go on? I would like to be shown specific instances where Harry Potter is significantly different from "traditional children's literature." To me it seems a rather blithe and careless "genre-ization."

It greatly saddens me to say that when I read the first Harry Potter book (for the first time--not in the 1,792 subsequent rereadings), I most likely would have sided with the dozen publishers that turned it down. I just wasn't that impressed. I only became an obsessive Harry Potter fan about eight months ago. (But recently I discovered that I have not been obsessing properly, as I own none of the movie soundtracks. I'm currently working to remedy that situation.)

very well said, Barry Cunningham! I agree completly!!

Clever "genre-ization," Arabella. There are definitely some excellent children's books out there, many of which have much in common with the HP series. You've made a good point, articulately.

Barry Cunningham is my hero. If it hadn't been for him, there would be no Harry Potter, and I can't imagine my world without HP. That was well put, what he said about seeing the book for what it was. =)

I don't care what genre Harry Potter is I just thank the Gods that Barry had the foresight to recognize a REALLY good story. I'm a much older adult who LOVES Harry Potter as well as other 'young adult/childrens' books.ANY story is good no matter what the genre if it is written well and our dear Jo is stellar when it comes to wriiting!

i agree with xoxDreamerGirlxox. Cunningham really saw what the HP books were about when no one else would.

yay barry cunningham! he saw how fantabulous great the hp books were when all those other foolish publishers couldnt. they must hate themselves now...

All the best books are turned down first. Don't trust anyone that automatically says it's good =D

I don't think anyone can predict if something is going to be big. A large part of it is chance. Don't take my word for it, just as anybody who undergoes a huge endeavor. Do you think they know they will succeed? They take a chance on it and that's all. How many books that this guy has chosen ended up being the next big thing?

This can be pretty funny if you think about it. Probably one of the most popular books ever, and she was turned down so many times. Sucks to be those publishers right now.

I love the story of how Harry was finally published. :)

YEAH! Someone finally says something smart about hp!!!!!!!!!!

rock on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i totally agree ~Morgan~

The thing is, the SS is not Jo's strongest work. I would actually say, of all of them it's her weakest. From what I understand, she had never published anything, not even so much as a poem (if I'm wrong, I depend on my fellower Mugglenetters to correct me on this). She had written, but not shown some earlier stories to anyone. I'm a writer myself, and I have studied these books in hopes of learning a bit about the ...ahem...magic of them and this is what I've come up with. Jo writes with love. Every word is crafted from a love of the story she's telling. Jo writes about characters she loves. And because she loves them, they are crafted into fully developed complex characters so real, it's easy to take them out of the context of the story and imagine having a conversation over tea with them. Her writing doesn't come from a place that children are somehow intellectually or emotionally inferior to adults, and because of this the stories appeal to the inner child in adults. I'm thirty years old, and I have no children (yet), but I have read her books through twice and each time I feel I got a little bit wiser. As compared to the children's literature of my youth: The characters were wooden, usually with only a single character flaw or defect. Take the character out of the story, character and story fall apart. The story was usually meant to be a parable to teach me a lesson in morality with an extremely oversimplified solution. They usually only ended up making me feel bad about myself because I was a lot more complex than anyone I ever read about, and those simple solutions just didn't help. The HP books have touched me so much, I have studied them in the hopes of producing a piece of literature that touches others. I don't think my writing will ever be equal to that of Jo's, but I think I am a better person for the studying. So, it could be said, I'm really really glad, for whatever his reasons, Barry chose to publish HP.

this may well be the first statement i've read that really captures the spirit of what harry potter is, instead of blowing it out of proportion (positively or negatively). yes, harry potter is a children's series, but it should be taken seriously by both children and adults. and yet at the end of the day, it's not much different from any other successful, thought-provoking, classic book for kids that's been written in the past!

Totally, i agree...i'm sick of everyone saying it's satanic and stupid stuff. well said!!

Whew! Thank God for Barry Cunningham, I bet all those publishers who turned her down are feeling pretty stupid right now. It was long, the title was unusual, and the story was dark? People need a new perspective, chic-flick like books aren't what we all need (don't get me wrong - I am a HUGE fan of Gossip Girls, the A-List, Sloppy First/Second Helpings/Charmed Thirds, etc.) but - hello? Is HP not the greatest?[p] And I agree with Cady - her first book was not the strongest. It set the tone pretty much and just gave us a layout, it was more like a somewhat more detailed outline.

I'm a writer as well. Just because publishers turned Jo's book down doesn't mean they didn't think it was good. A lot of books are rejected simply because the publisher (and that includes the sales and marketing departments, not just the editorial staff) didn't know what to do with it. SS was longer than the children's literature being sold at the time. It was more complex. The demographic wasn't easy to identify--clearly, since everyone was so surprised when the book appealed to so many different people in different age groups. I'm sure they are all kicking themselves for not thinking outside the box, but it happens to all writers. John Grisham, Stephen King, Dan Brown...everyone. I don't trust writers who haven't been rejected at least once! :-)

oh man, stinks to be one of the publishers who decided to turn her down... especially when they drive past the huge billboards which harry potter is now strating to appear on... and shop windows, shirts, undies, posters, lunch boxes, food labels, school supplies, shampoo, action figures, coloring books, shoelaces, etc. you know, thinking that they could have taken part in all of that publicity.

Sure, ss was not her strongest, but it was still great. i think gof is the best literary-wise. ya, those publishers must feel stupid, these books are like, one of the top selling series!!

Where would i be w/o Barry Cunningham and J.K. Rowling....??? Probley not on the comp everyday, and not having a whole folder in my fav dedicated to n hp.... *tear* That wold be horrible

I bet all of the other publishers are kicking themselves for not signing up with Rowling when they had the chance. Arabella - it doesn't matter how similar the characters may be in a story, but what matters is how the author has presented these characters and the plotline of the story. When looking at other children's books, they lack the creative and imaginative essence of what Rowlings books portray. GO BARRY!!

Really well said....beautiful.....tears are flowing out of my eyes.

Wonderfully stated! Go JK for not writing a normal traditional book!

>> "You need a real ability to feel the hope, wonder, burning sense of injustice, fear, or rage of childhood - an unfettered mind that still dreams, that goes with the truth of story."