Yes I'm an avid Harry Potter reader. At first the book annoyed me. Not because I thought it was "evil" and all that other crap but because I used to work in a bookstore. I would be the person that the shoppers would come up to and ask "Hey do you know when the next book is coming out?" "I'm sorry but I don't. Have a nice day," I would say. The first one to do that was fine then after a while it became annoying!!! There were times when I wanted to scream at them, "NO!!! I DON'T KNOW WHEN THE NEXT FREAKIN BOOK IS COMING OUT!!! OK? I'LL PROBABLY FIND OUT ABOUT THE SAME TIME THAT YOU DO." We usually got a little list of all the new books a month or two in advanced so we could put the sign up the month before.
Then there was the tower. One of the other women that worked there constructed a little tower out of the first hardback book (since it was vastly popular then and we had soooo many of them) around the New York Times Bestseller shelf that was coincidentally near the door. So. . . books were being knocked off that tower on almost a regular basis OR one whole section would just be knocked over completely and we'd have to go pick them up and rebuild sections of the tower.
So I wasn't a big fan of the book based on this experience but then my little brother got one of them for Christmas; read it, loved it and begged me to read it too. I kinda told him yeah, alright whatever and stuck the book under my bed. My mother also read it and loved it. So when the movie came out I decided that after seeing the movie I'll read the book. I went to the movie and came out a changed women. I love that movie. Finally, I picked up the first book and could not put it down. I read the second book and it was the same thing. I just finished the fourth book (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)today.
Now I am a Harry Potter fan. I was sorted into Gryffindor on the Harry Potter website (Which is, for those who don't read the books, Harry's house or dorm.) so I was kinda happy when that happened. I even got my wand (Unicore hair Mahogany 8 in.). I picked out my creature or familiar, a friendly and reliable cat I named Aurora. All of this I did at the website (http://www.harrypotter.com) something my little brother also introduced me too.
The fourth book is the longest book that I have ever read from beginning to end (It's over seven hundred pages long.). I am writing this because I can not believe that people would protest these books. In a country that isn't exactly high on the totem pole of education we need everything we can get that'll get kids willing to learn. This book is getting kids to read. My little brother who wasn't all that into reading now is reading and he's enjoying it. He's getting better at reading too. I don't understand how people can protest this book because it has witchcraft in it. Harry Potter isn't the first literary piece to involve witchcraft and wizardry. There are some very classic books that involve the same thing. What about Merlin? What about Gandalf? What about the Wicked Witch of the West? The Good Witch of the North? The Wizard of Oz? Well maybe not the Wizard of Oz. . . he wasn't exactly a wizard he was a con-artist pretending to be some kind of wizard.
How can people say that Harry Potter is evil and promotes witchcraft and not include these other classics and parts of pop culture. Next thing you know people will be burning Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass books because it's obvious that dear Alice was experimenting with some kind of hallucinogenic which induced her "dream". Next thing you know they'll be attacking fairytales. I'm sure there are many different weird scenarios they can get out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. One beautiful young girl living with several little grown men just seems so wrong to me.What about Cinderella? She was an indentured servant and she was just a child, that's child abuse! Don't even get me started on Beauty and the Beast. Come on it's obviously about beastiality. Yet no one attacks these classic stories do they? No. Yet, when someone writes a book or series of books about a little boy who finds out he's a wizard and that there's a whole world just like him everyone goes on the warpath. I swear religious extremist give nice sane christians a bad name.
Oh it's not just religious extremist, either. For some reason people have got in their heads that the books are evil. My little brother told me that he's gotten into many debates with his friends over whether the books are "evil" or not. I must admit that I too have had to debate with a friend whether the books were "evil" or not. I think in my case though she was simply kidding.
I'm not writing this to say that everyone should like and read these books this is simply my opinion. If you don't like the books, fine.If you do, cool. Just to infringe upon my rights to read them and love them. I do love the books and I don't care what people say about them. I'm going to continue to read them, I'm going to buy the DVD of the first movie and when the movie for the second book comes out I'll go see that too. I raise my "goblet" to Ms. J.K. Rowling because she has put out a really well written series of books and I can't wait for the fifth book in the series.
-Christel M.
