Reviewing Potter...

Well...I feel I must join the masses and comment on the upcoming release of the final chapter of the life and times of Harry Potter and his courageous cohorts. I am proud to add this fantastic series, created by J.K. Rowling, to my list of Literature for a Lifetime. In January, I reread books 1-4 in an attempt to refresh myself for the "The Deathly Hallows" release in July. I'm always surprised how enjoyable the books are to read. The world Rowling created is both fantastical and realistic. She has a lot to say about courage and strength of all forms, yet instills it in such a subtle way that both children and adults remain a captive audience. I'm not going to review the previous books, because I don't need to - they've been reviewed, analyzed, scrutinized, interpreted, translated and deciphered unlike any other book this side of Eden.

As a future librarian, and lifetime bibliophile, I have a great respect for Rowling and what she has done in the world of literature. Rowling made reading cool again. She made it acceptable to dress up like your favorite Potter character and wait in line at bookstores across the world to buy a BOOK at midnight. She brought us a magical world that's easy to get lost in, but doesn't let us forget about the everlasting battle between good and evil. Countless parallels can be drawn between that world and our own, but I digress. The point is that in this super high-tech, internet obsessed, cell-phone carrying, blog-writing, podcast listening jumbo jet world that we live in, reading is not always the first activity that comes to mind when we have free time. If a series like this can introduce a world of new people out there to the magic of reading, I'm happy.

Finally, I also think that in in situations like this, it is important not over analyze the nature of Harry Potter. It is a book, fictional at that. Remind yourselves and your kids that fiction "describes imaginary events and people." In other words, IT IS NOT REAL. So, let's not get all WASP-esque and instead, let our children decide for themselves what is or is not good literature. Learning to evaluate material for themselves is far more beneficial than being told what they can or cannot read. The only thing banned books ever did was increase their desirability.