All This Hype About Harry Potter

Yesterday I took the plunge. I pre-ordered the seventh and final Harry Potter book by J. K. Rowling. After much debating we even paid the fee to have it delivered on the day it was released. I really don't want to be waiting at the store at midnight and not sure I want to brave the stores on release date. I will though happily wait for the UPS man to make a delivery to my door, and bring me a box from Books-a-Million, with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Now to be perfectly honest I did not jump on the Harry Potter band wagon until about 3 years ago. My son has grown up reading them though. J. K. Rowling has been credited with getting children to read again. In this house I can see how they say that. My son is now seventeen and is anxiously waiting for that last book about Harry Potter to be released and in his hands. Did I mention he is a Harry Potter look alike? He has that same unruly dark hair and glasses. So not only has he grown up reading Harry Potter, but has always been asked if he is trying to look like Harry Potter!

My son had read through four of the Harry Potter books when Mom decided to see what it was all about. I started out with reading the first book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. While this was a good book in my opinion, it was still a book meant for kids. I did enjoy it though and moved on to reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This I found a bit more intriguing. While still a good book, it was more a read for me, not just one that I was reading because my kid was reading it. By book three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I have to admit I was hooked. I quickly read through book four and five, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Then I had to wait. Book six was about to be released and I had to wait for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We also pre-ordered that and anxiously waited for its arrival on our doorstep. Then I had to wait until my son had read it too. When I finally got my turn to read it, I remember a friend asking me why I was reading a kids book. I told them I read most of what my kids do, but this was after all Harry Potter! So here we sit, the book has been pre-ordered and we will wait until July 21^st and the UPS truck to bring us Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

But what is it all about? What has made the United States, the United Kingdom and other countries around the world, Harry Potter Crazy? What is all the hype for Harry? Well I think it is a bit more than a children's book. A book that if you looked at it would just be a kid's book, a book about a boy going to magic school and his yearly struggles to make it to the end. Harry is that kid in school that was the geek. He had a hard time, but he makes it. He makes it to be captain of the quidditch team as well as getting to fight great evil foes every year. But he is still that geeky boy, who doesn't know how to ask the girl out. He is the boy next door that got the short end of the stick, but everyone loves.

With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows we may have to say goodbye to Harry as it is the last of seven books, but I don't think that we will ever say goodbye. There may never be more adventures, but he will live on in the books J.K. Rowling has created. Waiting for the next generation to discover a world were the good kids end up winning in the end. For the rest of us, we will just have to wait patiently for July 21^st and then read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, knowing that Harry will live on forever in our hearts and in his books. He will always be there to visit!