Where are the Snowy Owls of Yesteryear?

[steepholm]

In my first Children's Fiction class of the year I always ask the students to talk about a book that was important to them in childhood. This time, for the first time in a dozen years, not one of the 18 mentioned Harry Potter. The HP generation appears to have passed. No one sat a-tremble on the eve of their 11th birthday to see if an owl would bring them the anticipated letter to Hogwarts. (They ought of course have been waiting to discover whether they were an Old One, which is much cooler.)

There was only one mention each of Dahl (The BFG) and Blyton, specifically Malory Towers. Jacqueline Wilson held up well, though, breasting the tape with Percy the Park Keeper.

Comments

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

I did once have a conversation (with someone who is younger than me but is now an adult) where I said, "I was really disappointed when I turned eleven and nothing happened." She said, "Hogwarts?" I said, "I'm ten years older than you. No."

My students are past the Harry Potter generation too. It's all Hunger Games right now, I think.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

And I was disappointed when I read "Mimsy Were the Borogoves"-- I was already too old to get any good from the educational toys from the future.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

So what was it ten years before Hogwarts?

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

As steepholm suggested above, The Dark is Rising. (Of course, The Dark is Rising is older than me, but I fell madly in love with it at the age of ten.)