This has been kicked around by better minds than mine, but it's just so egregious I have to comment: Harol Bloom is an idiot.
If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?
It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."
What a windbag. And if I may pile on, his opinion of himself is a little high:
I just read an article from Mr. Bloom in The Wall Street Journal supporting General Clark for president. Bloom seems to think that we are a modern day Rome dictating our will to the world. That our influence is imperial. His idea seems to be that we elect Clark and then proceed to kiss the asses of those that disagree with democracy and some how by doing so persuade them to like us. You're right Stillwell, he is an idiot.