Day Six--and Harry Potter

"So," you say, "we've heard quite a bit about your obsession with U2. Do you have any other fixations you haven't told us about?"

Me: Fixations? Obsession? Whatever do you mean?

You: Obsession. You know: a noun meaning a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling; broadly : compelling motivation ; as in "obsession with profits."

Me: I have no idea what you are talking about.

You: Yeah. Right. I bet you are listening to U2 right this very instant, am I right?

Me: Umm...er...

You: Uh HUH! And I bet you have pictures of U2 on your computer, right?

Me: Well, if by "on your computer" you mean...

You: And I bet you've even got a desktop or screensaver of U2--true?

Me: Oh, look over there! It's the Winged Nike of Samothrace!

You: The prosecution rests. So. What else are you obsessed with?

Me: This could get looooong...

But I'll limit this post to my literary crack addiction to Harry Potter. Yup, good ole HP and me, we go back a ways. The phenomenon seemed to hit the US around the time the Pony was in kindergarten--1999. I'd heard about it, and thought it sounded interesting, but was not in a position to be buying a bunch of hardcover books, so I thought I'd wait until they were out in paperback.

HA!

I was listening to an interview on Public Radio about the whole phenomenon, prompted because some school districts were being asked to prohibit them, and the discussion was about what they meant to readers. And a sixth grade class called in. Which totally got to me--a teacher was cool enough to bring the show to the attention of the class, and actually had them contribute to the conversation. And I decided I had to experience HP in real time--damn the expense.

So, I bought Sorceror's Stone, which was in paperback. And it was good. Really good. Good enough, I thought, that it would last as a children's classic, like Alice in Wonderland or Phantom Tollbooth.

Which is NOT as obvious then as it is now. In fact, that was at the height of the R.L. Stine Goosebumps fad, where the Goosebumps series was not only at the top of the best selling children's books, but that each individual title, counted separately, would have filled the top 20 or 50 (or some such ridiculous number) of spots. ALONE.

And who reads those books now?

Anyway, as much as I liked the first one, I decided I would get the next one from the library. Again: HA! The waiting list was in three figures. So, while I waited for the library or paperback release, whichever came first, I saw the second one at Target. And I picked it up...

(No! Don't touch the Tar Baby, Anansi! Don't touch it!)

And I opened it...

(And Pandora said "What's in this silly old box anyway?")

And I read the first chapter...

( Mothers of River City! Heed the warning before it's too late! Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption! The moment your son leaves the house, does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee? Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger? A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt. Billy's Whiz Bang?)

I was hooked. Dobby got me. What a great creation he was! Totally unlike anything I had seen in fiction before, and totally engrossing.

So now we go to the midnight release parties for the books--in costume even. We quiz each other on HP trivia. And we see the movies. And buy the movies. And watch them again. And play family wide games of Scene It, HP Edition. We have all the books in hardcover, some duplicates in paperback, some falling apart at the spine. At the beginning of this past summer we all looked at each other and asked "Well? Is there a Harry Potter movie coming out this year? When is it coming out?"

The answer is July 13, 2007. We can hardly wait. Since this post is already hopelessly long, I'll save the pictures for the next one.