This Owl Just In...The Harry Potter Posts (#1: Flashback)

Flashback:
I can still picture the bookstore. The kind you don't see so much anymore. Someone with thoughtful and discerning tastes stocked it with a wide selection of books so that even though it was small and local, there was always something to intrigue me. I was six months pregnant with my firstborn, and while shopping invariably found myself scanning the kids shelves thinking about the wonderful world of books my children would have. I must have passed over Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone a hundred times without a glance when suddenly the world around me went haywire. Harry Potter was being made into a movie. Everywhere people were talking about Harry Potter and I distinctly remember having two cohesive thoughts:

1. That Harry Potter sounded like a stupid name for a kid's hero; and
2. That if the books were this important (because even then it was obvious they were achieving market saturation) then I had better read them to stay informed for my kids. Yeah, that kid still firmly in utero.

I think the third book had just been released and there was talk of number four. I marched in and bought the first of the series. I took it home to read....and couldn't stop. I read it in one day. Devoured it. Dreamed colourfully of Hogwarts, so vivid were the pictures Rowling painted for me in my mind. And rushed out to buy number two.

I wasn't one of those lining up to buy the books at midight as they came out, but I certainly wasn't waiting for the paperback either.

And so my love affair for Harry Potter novels began.

(to be continued)