This Is Just Sad…

A teacher read the last page of Harry Potter to her class, thus “spoiling” the ending.

No, that’s not what’s sad. What’s sad is the following quotes:

Parents were also fuming over the incident. Maria Travers, whose son Travis, eight, goes to the school, said: “He’s read the last three books but there’s no point reading this one now.”

Another mother, who declined to be named, said: “It’s appalling. My son was going to read a book instead of playing on his computer and I was going to have some peace and quiet.

“Now that’s ruined. What was she thinking of?”

There’s no point to reading a book once you know the ending??? How ludicrous is this?!

My belief is, and has been for some time, that a good book will be good no matter how many times you read it, so if you can only read the book once the book sucks. As an example, Bag of Bones by Stephen King is an awesome book–even the second, third, or fourth time through it. Knowing the ending doesn’t matter, because it’s a good book. Since, sadly, more people are familiar with movies: The Sixth Sense is a great movie even when you know the twist at the end (compare it to The Number 23 where the twist is the movie, and thus the movie is pointless to watch a second time–if I told you the ending, I would ruin that movie).

If the ending is the entire book, the author is a hack. I’m not saying that’s the case with Harry Potter since I haven’t read it; but it is the way that these parent’s are treating J.K. Rawling (my guess would be unfairly).

As for the mom who couldn’t get her kid off the computer, there’s a simple solution. Unplug it. Then make your kid read Harry Potter anyway. And when that’s done, you can try other books like the Hardy Boys or something. It’s amazing what you’ll find when you break away from the media driven book world.