The first thing that makes the Harry Potter books so appealing to children is the magical realist world of the fantasy novel in which the rules of nature—time, space and physics—do not apply. Children are naturally imaginative because their understanding of the world is not yet fully formed and expands through their free play and instinctual creativity. The flying, spell-casting, and strange creatures that inhabit Harry Potter’s fictional universe are familiar to children from their own dreams and imaginary games, representing a world that makes intuitive sense about what can be possible according to a child’s sensibility.

Children are naturally credulous, meaning they believe things, and want to believe things, that an adult’s concrete experience in the world might have taught them to be false or otherwise impossible. In that way, and also because Harry and his friends are children like they are, young readers can more easily suspend their disbelief and relate to the characters’ fantastic abilities, perhaps even recognizing aspects of themselves in the characters.

Another appeal of the books is in the fact that a child’s world is highly regulated and supervised, providing few moments of autonomy and opportunities for decision making and problem solving. The young Harry Potter characters represent idealized versions of human flaws and virtues whose adventures, although fantastical, provide young readers a peer example to better understand themselves and the complex nature of morality, mortality, and community.

The fictional characters provide a screen or canvas onto which children can project their own self-images and empathize with the characters’ motivations and conflict. The fantasy genre allows Rowling to empower her young characters with much-exaggerated agency and responsibility that young readers can aspire to emulate as they learn to navigate challenging life lessons in a safe, escapist space.