Friday, July 20, 2007

Harry Potter

Yes... I know... but the fact is that the Children are going to a midnight party tonight, and one of them will be dressed as a Death Eater, and another is seriously considering Hermione (having natural assets of unmanageable hair and a know-it-all attitude - Love you Child!) while the third has rejected my suggestion of an old pillowcase thus becoming Dobby.

Child 1 was given a Harry Potter book in Alaska by its very best friend. I had heard rumblings about the books, but since they were *gasp* popular I assumed they were also horrible and I wasn't going to have MY children read them. (see also cultural deprivation as described in an earlier post) But Child 1's best friend was a charming and wonderful person, and it insisted that the books were fantastic! Marvelous! Really, really great! So I practiced my best oh-well-if-you-must-but-we-all-know-we're-better-than-this face and read the book.

Like how many thousands of other children mine have now grown up with the series. I think of them geographically: books 1-3 were Alaska, book 4 we got in Virginia, book 5 in California.

So now we'll be going, at midnight, to pick up book 7. They still want me to read it aloud to all of them, although it's a little harder to cuddle everyone together now that legs have stretched so alarmingly and they come darn close to outweighing me. So probably Child 1 will have some project spread out over the floor as it listens, Child 2 will be ensconced in a corner of the other couch where it can glare at me if the plot goes against its likings and Child 3 will spend half its time bouncing up as its inspired to make something or try something out or shout out a prediction.

I'll probably stop at the end of every really exciting chapter and make to close the book. There's no point in ending at a boring bit - you have to make them suffer a little bit - and the Children will howl in anguish and insist I read just one more chapter... and then another...

So - do you think Harry will die?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have found the evil glare of child #2 to be part if its charm.

Anonymous said...

I went to one of the midnight parties last night. Great fun! Other than a handful of kids (small store) hardly a person there was under forty. At one point, another local merchant popped his head in to say hi to the group and was adamant HE would NEVER read -- SHUDDER -- the H.arry P.otter B.ooks. Poo poo pedestrian pop culture. NEVER.

People can be so strange. I'm fairly certain he thought he was being pretentious and cool completely missing that he was in fact looking like an idiot.

He's probably also one of those people who will tell you he never eats sugar.

I have to run. I'm only half way through the book...

Anonymous said...

i love you TOO mummy, just realize that i inherited this hair from YOU. and i went as luna lovegood with my stylish radish earrings. painted with 100 percent genuine nail polish!!!