HIS magical adventures have enchanted a generation of children and made his Scottish author into an international literary star.
Now J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter has been named the most inspirational children’s book character, beating fellow wizarding student Hermione Granger to the top spot.
The boy wizard won the hearts of readers throughout the seven book instalments, which chart his time at the mystical school Hogwarts after discovering his magical powers at the age of 11.
Harry went on to fight off Dementors, trolls and giant spiders across the books, which were later brought to life on the silver screen through box office hits.
The works of Scottish authors or tales inspired by Scotland were placed highly in a top ten of inspirational characters picked through a poll of 2,000 parents, conducted by The Works book store, which is campaigning for parents to encourage their children embrace reading.
J.M Barrie's Peter Pan, beloved by children for a century, came in at number seven, while Peter Rabbit - whose author Beatrix Potter drew on her childhood holidays in Dunkeld, Perthshire - was tenth.
Coming in at second was Roald Dahl’s uber intelligent Matilda, closely followed by the author’s Charlie Bucket from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
Peter Pan remains popular
Also making the top 50 inspirational children’s characters were Mary Poppins and Paddington Bear.
Residents of A.A. Milne’s Hundred Acre Wood proved popular, with Winnie the Pooh, Christopher Robin and Tigger all featuring in the list.
Dr Jane Murray, who specialises in early childhood education, said on behalf of The Works: “The research shows how books are as important as ever and the positive impact they have on a child’s development and relationship with their parents and other carers.
“At the heart of every story there is a good character and the research shows how nostalgic and classic characters continue to inspire parents and children throughout life.
“It’s great to see how adults are helping their children to embrace reading and discover fictional worlds and characters who can influence their child’s behaviour and outlook.”
The research found that most parents read with their children five times a week, while and enjoy lingering over the bedtime story.
A further 70 per cent think it’s important for children to have inspirational characters to look up to in stories, and four in 10 typically try to read books along these lines.
More than one third have read a book they loved from their own childhood to their offspring, and 62 per cent of modern kids ‘loved’ the classic read.
Peter rabbit is a children's favourite
Despite this, most parents said today’s books are better than their own youthful stories.
The study also proved how reading is still vital to parent and child relationships today, with four out of five stating it is one of the best ways to bond with their kids.
Dr Murray added: “Books not only help children to learn, but they also help them to be happier.
“Babies attune to the human voice to help them to learn, so when a parent and young child focus together on a book, for example, pointing at pictures and repeating the words together, their joint attention helps the young child to develop important knowledge and skills about language and reading.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here