Making Room for Children’s Books

In the late spring and summer of 1999, it did not take a wizard to see that something unprecedented was afoot in the rarified precincts of American publishing bestsellerdom. After an unremarkable run of Sundays in which New York Times fiction list stalwarts Tom Wolfe, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, John Grisham, Patricia Cornwall, and Mary Higgins Clark vied for the top position, the June 20 list delivered an eye-opening surprise when a newcomer to the club, a young Scottish fantasy writer named J.K. Rowling, ascended to the #1 spot with the release of her second children's book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Following Chamber's debut just days after Thomas Harris's latest horror novel, the Guardian chortled: "Hannibal [Lecter] eaten for breakfast by [a] 13-year-old." By mid-September, Rowling had emerged as her own stiffest competition and scored the hat trick of having had all three of her then-published Potter books reach the summit of the list within three months. Less than a year later, the New York Times announced the introduction of a separate children's bestseller list. As the Book Review's editor, Charles McGrath, commented: "The time has come when we need to clear some room."