St. Louis Today reports that
Sep 18, 2002
News
St. Louis Today reports that “the most popular fictional boy-wizard ever created was supposed to have swamped bookstores this summer with volume 5 in the series, tentatively titled Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Or was it? It’s unclear whether a firm release date had been set, or whether it keeps getting pushed back. Regardless, fan anxiety and rumors are flying everywhere.”
Primary school students of NSW (New South Wales, Australia) are better at reading and writing than they were eight years ago, but boys continue to outperform girls in mathematical skills, and girls are more literate. … The Education Department’s deputy director-general (schools), Alan Laughlin, said the popularisation of literature – especially the Harry Potter publishing phenomenon – was partly responsible for the lift in literacy because it had taken reading out of the “egghead” realm. (From the Sydney Morning Herald.)