Thursday, April 14, 2016

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

When the first Harry Potter book was published in 1997, I read it, just like countless others did. For some reason, it just didn't grab me. I've never been a huge fantasy reader and this fell into that category for me. I simply wasn't interested enough to read any more of them. And I thought it would stay that way (like my feelings on The Lord of the Rings). Then I had kids. Kids who love reading together as a family. We have read some great series together already like The Chronicles of Narnia and This Can't Be Happening at MacDonald Hall but were wondering what our next series would be. Darcy suggested Harry Potter because we had received the first three books in a box of books some friends had given us. So we decided to give it a try, with me expecting to be bored the whole time.

There is something about seeing a book through the eyes of your children that changes things. We were all hooked, right from day one. It has taken us a little more than a year to get through the whole series but we have loved every minute of it (well there were a few character deaths we disliked, but you know what I mean). We have a very strict "no reading ahead" policy. None of us is allowed to read anything without the other two present. We all read or no one reads. There were times when we all struggled with this (I sometimes found Wesley just reading the chapter titles trying to find out what was going to come next) but we kept to it.

Earlier this week we turned the last page of the last book and it was a sad moment for all of us. Our time in the world of Harry Potter has been "magical" for us and we were all very sad to see it come to an end. So sad, in fact that we will be stretching it out a little more by reading Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them next.

There's not much I can say about the books that hasn't already been said. J.K. Rowling has created an incredible world, amazing characters and exciting storylines. We laughed, we cried, we were scared, but we loved it all.

I will always look back on this time we've spent reading this series as one of my favourite times in my kids' childhoods. The hours we spent, under the covers of my bed, snuggled up and immersed in this magical world were some of the best hours I've ever spent.

Now we want to save our pennies for a trip to Harry Potter World at Universal Studios in Florida.

I'm so glad I waited to read this series until I read it with my kids. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. But they're still on their own for The Lord of the Rings.