LISNews: Librarian News

British researchers report that they have found that the number of Muggle children visiting the emergency room in that country dropped by half on the summer weekends when new Harry Potter books were released. This study involved little magic. Gwilym and his colleagues reviewed the files of all children aged 7 to 15 (good reading ages) who attended their emergency department with musculoskeletal injuries over the summer months of a three-year period.

They then compared the number of emergency-room admissions on weekends a Harry Potter book had been released with admissions on surrounding weekends and on the same weekend in previous years.