"It might be questionable whether Harry Potter will become a classic in children's literature, but no one can deny that it has really captured the children's hearts," said Cao Wenxuan, a professor from the Chinese Department of Peking University.

With the release in China of the Hollywood blockbuster Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the British boy magician and his adventure stories have become an overnight hit with tens of millions of Chinese teenagers.

So while leading writers and scholars from the Chinese children's literature circle gathered in Dalian in northeast China's Liaoning Province for the Sixth Asia Children's Literature Convention, many of them were trying to find the clue to Rowling's success.

"There has long been a misconception that the main function of children's literature is to educate. In the 1960s, even factors like 'class struggle' were included in children's stories," said Wang Quangen, a professor with the Chinese Department of Beijing Normal University.

Actually, the most important task for children's literature is to be fun for the children to read and a children's book should be regarded as successful if it just "makes the kids laugh and feel happy," said Wang.

While China has a huge potential market for children's literature, the existing children's education system has become a major barrier to the development of this market, said Xue Tao, a young writer from Liaoning who has been writing children's books for ten years.

Chinese children, driven by their parents to study hard for future success from an early age, have no time for fairy tales. This has directly affected the sales of the children's books, said Xue.

Stating that a boom in children's literature depends on the development of social civilization and modern literature, Cao urged fellow writers to write more for children and for society to pay more attention to children's literature.

Before 1976, China only had two publishing houses for children's books and about 20 writers engaged in the field. The situation has changed a lot in the past two decades, and currently there are 31 specialized publishing houses and over 3,000 professional writers of children's literature across the country.

However, Chinese children's literature still lacks masters and masterpieces, said Cao.

"Chinese children's literature writers must change their concepts and improve their skills in order to become masters like Andersen and produce excellent works like Harry Potter," he added.

(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2002)