Read the Harry Potter books

Last night, in bed just before I fell asleep, it dawned on me how everything would end. I asked Tommy and he confirmed it, though there was a pause where I could tell he was thinking “But I thought you didn’t want me to tell you how it ended!”

What a great story. Rowling certainly created a masterpiece.

I’m 1/4 of the way into The Half-Blood Prince, and I can hardly wait to finish the series.

I started reading the Harry Potter books in November and I’ve read a book a month, so at this point, I have only The Half Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows left.

I definitely enjoy them! J.K. Rowling is certainly a very talented author. But I am relieved that I waited til they were all published to start reading. I’m not one to follow trends and hype, so not only did I NOT want to have to fight the riots at the books stores, I was a bit prejudiced as well. What makes THESE books so much better than any other of the books I’ve read? I’m still not sure, because while they are richly imaginative wonderful stories, is there a whole lot of difference between most of the other books I’ve read and loved? No, not really. Ender’s Game and all the Ender’s Saga will still rank higher in my list than Harry Potter will; Redwall, while very different, never got the recognition that HP did, and I love The Chronicles of Narnia to this day.

Another small thing that put me off for a bit was the virtual war on Harry Potter because of “witchcraft”. I’m very much a God fearing Christian, but um, come on. Harry Potter is not pagan; Hogwarts is not a religion! I don’t mind one bit if a parent doesn’t want their child reading HP – that’s up to you! – but don’t be freaking out because Harry Potter was born a wizard. There was “magic” in Narnia, too, and C.S. Lewis was a highly regarded Christian author. The difference between HP and CoN is basically no more than Narnia was a different world, and Harry’s world is a part of our own.

Then I’ve also heard parents say they dislike Harry because he is “disobedient” to authority, which REALLY made my jaw drop. As these are primarily American parents, I’m reminded of the scene in the Nicolas Cage movie “National Treasure” where Cage’s character toasts to the founding fathers of the United States, saying that had they been caught for their “treason”, they would have been killed, but they did what they knew was right. Subsequently an entire country was formed because of those ideals. THEY were disobedient to authority. The apostle Paul was disobedient to authority, too, many times being imprisoned and beaten for doing what he knew was right.

Disobedience is not always wrong.

Hopefully today I’ll be able to grab The Half Blood Prince from the library. All this time later it’s still surprising to go in there and find the shelf empty!