It will take more than wizardry to get Thai kids to read books. But the worldwide release of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix cast a spell over Bangkok on June 21, and book stores sold tens of thousands of copies in the first week.
The real rush, though, will come later. Harry Potter enthusiasts are waiting for the Thai version of Phoenix, due out later this year, partly because it will be cheaper than the English version but largely because they can more easily lose themselves in Harry's magical world when reading about it in their own language.
Entranced 12-year-old Jutamad Bawornrattanakul says she would 'like the magic to protect myself from dangerous things'. But she does not want to laboriously pick her way through an English-Thai dictionary to find that magic.
Jutamad is one of the few Thai children hooked on books.
Do not be fooled by Thailand's 93 per cent literacy rate and the mass of magazines and newspapers on newsstands. Most youngsters choose TV, computer games and comics, as do most adults.
Students only read books if they need them for their courses; they do not read for pleasure, grumble critics.