In the following review, Douthat discusses the success of the Harry Potter books, despite the author's stylistic shortcomings and religious critics.

Reviewing a Harry Potter book is the ultimate superfluous act. No critic can hope to lay a glove on J. K. Rowling's series, which long ago passed into the realm of universal approbation reserved for mothers, flags, and balanced budgets. The only remaining Harry-skeptics—Christian fundamentalists on one hand and literary scholars like Harold Bloom and A. S. Byatt on the other—have been banished beyond the pale of civilized discourse, and everyone else has given in: We all love Harry, and Voldemort take anyone who doesn't.

It's not that the anti-Potter types don't have a certain point. Judged purely on her literary style, the world's bestselling authoress isn't in nearly the same league as the canonical greats of children's literature—the C.S. Lewises and...