I've read and loved an awful lot of YA fantasy, including most of the series mentioned in this thread and a few others that I think are amazing (The Young Wizards series by Diane Duane, most of Tamora Pierce's stuff, and the John Bellairs series that began with "The House with a Clock in its Walls", for example). Not to mention Madeleine L'Engle.

Despite that, however, I've never felt even close to the amount of desire for a sequel as I did for the fourth through seventh HP books. I definitely think it came down to emotional resonance for me - Harry and his friends felt like normal kids in school, despite the magic. Most fantasy, especially Arthurian or Epic fantasy, doesn't quite capture the sense of children enough, partly because they're usually extremely exceptional in one or more ways. Duane's Young Wizards are the only two around. Will and the other youngsters in the Cooper series were constantly interacting with people not In The Know. Pierce's heroines are almost always either hiding a secret (Alanna and Alys) or extremely powerful (the wild mage). Bellair's Lewis is the closest, but, love that series though I do, I always found Lewis sort of pathetic; he certainly wasn't an average person in his school.

Harry, on the other hand, is mostly normal despite his appearances of being exceptional. All of his friends have magic, so that's a wash. He's friends with many people and not so much with many others. He has some success with girls, but is generally sort of middle-of-the-road. He's neither the smartest nor the dumbest, neither the nicest or the meanest, neither the most sensible nor the most insensible. He's really kind of just a good, average kid. Sure, lots of bad and interesting things happen to him, but it's not because of his personality or his place in the Hogwarts social heirarchy; it's external. It makes it much easier to connect with him than many heroes, because it's easy to imagine that we really are just like Harry, and haven't been put in unlucky enough situations to have our heroism come out.

And I'm pretty sure that's why they caught on so hard with me, and probably part of why they caught on so much with so many others.

I always read Harry as exceptional--as the most powerful of his peers, even if he's not as smart or as studly.

The key thing for me is that the only reason we ever know that is because he's thrown in situations where he really has to call on his power. Most of his peers aren't, especially in the first few books of the series. By the time it's made explicit that he's got crazy mad power, we've already bought into him as somebody to identify with, and the emotional resonance is already there.

He does show himself time and again to be an exceptional leader, but that's actually a pretty subtle ability for a hero, and not something that throws most out of their vicarious comfort zone.

It's nice too how his popularity at school fluctuates so - I mean, initially we have that whole "OMG I'm seekritly magical and rich and famous!" thing, but then later on he gets his fair share of being demonised and ostracised by wizarding/school society, so the readers don't get too pissed off with him being Mr Popularity - he's still kind of misunderstood emo outsider guy at times. (Thinking of Goblet of Fire now, and finding myself feeling v affectionately towards that book. Pity its editing team forgot to, you know EDIT it - but I do love that whole thing of Cedric being everyone's favourite, and Harry being universally despised. Neat trick, managing to make your boy an underdog even after he's saved the world a few times.

Pity its editing team forgot to, you know EDIT it

I'm that way about Order of the Phoenix. And it may be the one where he's most demonized and ostracized, what with the "Voldy isn't really back" meme.

Most fantasy, especially Arthurian or Epic fantasy, doesn't quite capture the sense of children enough, partly because they're usually extremely exceptional in one or more ways.

To me, the most real children in fantasy/magic are Edward Eager's children, who are very ordinary children who survive with their wits. E Nesbit's children are pretty much the same, except their being in Edwardian England made them somewhat exotic to me. I was grateful to Harry Potter for encouraging publishers reprint books like those. Until Harry Potter, Edward Eager had been out of print for years.

I am grateful to Harry Potter regardless. For all that the later ones needed editing, and it seems that most books these days need editing, the Harry Potter books have that rare quality of making you want to turn the page. I loved having so much public hoopla over books. It was like people running up to the pier and asking "Did little Nell die?" when the ships came from England with the next installment of The Old Curiousity Shop.

When one of the Harry Potter books came out, a reporter here interviewed a father who had his daughter and several more preteen girls with him waiting to buy the book at midnight. They were having a sleepover and they were going to read all night together. It was so wonderful that I cried.

It is the Oprah book phenomenon-- I saw more people that said "I haven't been to the library in years..." and despite the articles saying it isn't making a difference -- on an individual basis, it made a difference.

Bookistas - I'm going on a cruise, and I was thinking that I would go to a used bookstore, buy a bunch of books and just leave them on the boat. Any suggestions for books loved that would be in a used bookstore? I like fantasy, mystery, spy fiction, etc.

The Miles Vorkosigan books, which is like all three of your genre combined together! But I suspect you've read them all already.

I don't think I've heard of them, this is so exciting!

eta: Just checked them on Amazon, do you happen to remember which one is first? I find that even if reading out of order, or not the whole series, you should read the first one first because it sets up so much stuff.