apparently there is some sort of 30-day Harry Potter meme out there

[kareina]

mamapduck is playing, and her answer to the first question prompted me to answer it as well. I don't promise to play for a full 30 days, but I'll at least manage this one.

01. Discuss how you got into Harry Potter and why you still love it.

I was still living in Anchorage, and the house in which I lived received a paper subscription of the newspaper, which I tended to read over breakfast. I saw an article about the books, which raved about how amazing it was that someone had published a book which had children actually *reading*, even kids who are not normally people who read for pleasure. This was the first time I'd heard of the books, and wondered what the fuss was about.

At the time I worked part-time in a used book store as a favour to one of the students in the Geology Lab I was teaching--she had complained that she couldn't find anyone competent to work at the book store she owned, and as a result she was having problems getting her homework done. So I agreed to take on a couple of shifts a week to give her time to attend to her studies. One afternoon a customer brought in some books on trade, and one of them was the first Harry Potter book. When there was a lull in customers I picked it up to glance at the fist page or to "just to see what the fuss was about". The next thing I was aware of, other than the story, was when another customer came into the store, and I looked up to realize that I was three chapters into the book. So I set it aside in the pile of things for me to purchase, and returned to work.

I think I finished that first book the same day I brought it home, and have purchased the others as soon as they came out, and then, again, when they came out in paperback, since I by far prefer to read paperback books. I still love them because I enjoy the world--I've always loved stories with magic, and this is a plausible version of that. Like many books aimed at a young audience they are written in an engaging manner which lends itself well to re-reading (which is something I love to do). In addition to loving the official books, I am also hooked on the fan-fic written by blamebrampton who always does a wonderful job creating stories which are plausible given the "facts" of the published books, and whose writing skill is such that I'd read her shopping list and enjoy it.