Pottering Off

We're Pottering Off with Megan Kelly, Michael's former Potter podcasting cohost. She's visiting The Library looking for complex YA stories of friendship. Oh, and they must be British! Seeing flowers and sparks everywhere? Don't panic! It's a normal side effect from entering the Osemanverse. We're exploring not one, but three books that go beyond the Heartstopper graphic novels: Radio Silence, Loveless, and Solitaire.

We're Pottering Off with Delia Gallegos, podcaster with Black Nerds Create and host of Culture x Culture. She's sailing through The Library searching for a hearty crew of LGBTQIA+ pirates. Climb aboard and discover buried treasure with the streaming comedy, Our Flag Means Death.

We're Pottering Off with Spencer Miller, Canadian educator and Editorial Coordinator for Top Grade: Can Lit for the Classroom. He's searching the shelves for an Indigenous author who combines the contemporary with the fantastical and mythological. Author Eden Robinson has the answer with her darkly humorous and utterly wild novel, Son of a Trickster, the first in The Trickster trilogy and winner of the Canada Reads 2020 competition!

Seeking diverse novels for youth? Visit We Need Diverse Books for additional resources.

We're Pottering Off with Christina Taylor, the Library Management Consultant and former Youth Services Consultant for the Texas State Library! She's leading us through the library shelves to find positive queer representation in graphic novel form with Trung Le Nguyen's The Magic Fish.

We're Pottering Off with Mike Schubert, host of The Newest Olympian and Potterless! He's searching the library shelves for something that combines basketball, rap, hip-hop, movies, humor, good vibes, and lots of "other things"! The perfect fit? Writer Shea Serrano!

When the Harry Potter series ended, Michael Harle's mother wisely told him "Some people only have one good story to tell." Perhaps her words were prophetic, as J. K. Rowling now busies herself spinning tales of divisiveness that betray the morals of her own franchise. Longtime fans are looking for somewhere else to go, but with so many options, where do they even start?

That's where Michael comes in. As a former Harry Potter superfan who podcasted about the franchise for ten years, a lifelong librarian who champions all forms of media, and an individual with multiple intersectional identities, Michael has made it his mission to help recovering Potter fans find new stories to love. Joining Michael are special guests with their own recommendations, here to highlight titles featuring the kind of equity, diversity and inclusion longtime Potter fans have waited for. It's time for a new story that goes Pottering Off beyond the Wizarding World.