sci fi, fantasy, and mainstream today

I’ve always loved the fantasy genre. When I was younger, I had two major problems with it:
-It was sort of looked down upon. I saw fantasy/sci fi authors writing about it themselves, that it was not a “respected” genre, and the flack the writers receive for not being “literary” or “serious”. Mostly I didn’t like this because my sophomore English teacher told my mom she wished I’d read higher brow novels instead of reading Dune.
-When I was around 6-12 years old, I could never find anything aimed at me I wanted to read. I liked the fantasy novels, but they were some hard reading for a 9 year old sometimes. There was A Wrinkle In Time and Narnia and some others, but finding things was hard work!

I feel like all of that is different now. And I feel like the number one cause or effect is named Harry Potter.

( amiright? )