and why you should, too!

many kids i know, as well as some young-at-heart adult friends of mine, have been looking forward to this Saturday in July with the greatest anticipation. why? well, it's Harry Potter #4 day, and if that thought doesn't thrill you at all, well then, you're just a muggle. ;-)

in the Philippines, my godson Codi anxiously awaits an Amazon.com shipment... somewhere in Honolulu, my nephew JJ is waiting in line with his grandpa, to pick up Goblet of Fire... nearer home, in Castro Valley, my niece Nikki is probably with her dad at Barnes and Noble... last night, Daniel ("littlehunter") was with his mom Angela at a bookstore party in Livermore, waiting for the stroke of midnight, for Harry's big entrance.

and just now, after lunch, i walked over to The Other Change of Hobbitt in downtown Berkeley, forked over almost 30 buckaroos, and staggered outside into sunlight. 'staggered' because this is one seriously fat book... all 734 pages of it! (or 734.256, as Daniel informed me this morning on IM, *chuckle*) looks like many boys and girls (and skinny adults like moi) will develop strained arm and wrist muscles hefting this weighty tome around. even though i told David Hunter i wouldn't have time to read the book at all for the next few weeks, and so i could lend it to him on Monday (reading competition in the Hunter household soon!), i couldn't resist cracking the thing open on my walk back to Tolman Hall, and reading the first chapter, "The Riddle House." will i give in to the temptation and read the weekend away? or should i do the necessary thing, and read midterm evals and journals? *sigh* choices, choices.

so anyway...

for those of you "older kids" who haven't read Harry Potter (yes you Tom Fletcher, Kass, the two Jonathans [Spark and Quad], Anna Lam -- hey!! the Bums! lol), the following brief exegesis is for you. and for any other benighted souls out there who haven't been touched by Harry Potter's magic wand. ;-)

around about the time i began reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (3rd in the series), it dawned on me why Harry Potter was striking a chord with me. now, i'm not talking about why i think the HP series has captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of kids (and adults) worldwide. i'm just talking about why it captured me. perhaps my experience is generalizable, perhaps not. but it really doesn't matter...

for me, the Harry Potter stories answer -- in a charming, ingenious, and just 'right' way -- a question that's probably as old as our species: what does it mean to be human?

how does it do this? in a couple of subtly ironic ways. first irony... there is humanity in the main characters: Harry Potter, his best friends Ron and Hermione, his Hogwarts teachers Albus Dumbledore and Minerva McGonagall, the gardener Hagrid, even the escaped convict Sirius Black. where is the irony? why, in the fact that all the aforementioned are... WIZARDS! what, then, might the writer be saying...? to me, she's saying: there is humanity where you might not otherwise look. while it might be a scientific fact that witches and wizards don't really exist, outcasts among us do... those whom we consider strange and different, those unlike us, with odd ways and manners. but in the end, hasn't each one of us felt strange and different, outcast, in some way, at some point in our lives? J.K. Rowling, a single mother, impoverished before her breakthrough writing of the novels, speaks a simple truth. that it's encased in a story that just won't let you go, is immaterial.

second irony... it's a children's book. and, for the most part, a book about children. while it's true that many classics of literature have been books written for children and young people (in my own formative years: J.R.R.Tolkien's The Hobbit, C.S.Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, St. Exupery's The Little Prince) one generally doesn't go looking for the answers to the question of our humanity in such books. instead, we look to the Bhagavad Gita, the Bible, the Koran, the Kalevala, the Tao Te Ching. but here we are, at the beginning of the second millennium of the Gregorian calendar, and the most popular book in the English-speaking world (and doubtless HP will be in massive translation) is a magical fantasy about children wizards. is there a moral here?

why not? for me, the moral of this particular story of pop and literary culture at the end of the millennium is that magic exists in the world. the magic of reading: millions of kids (particularly restive boys) sitting down to read avidly. the magic of the imagination, and of sentience: we humans, being, are not just the sum of a confluence of atoms in space, or a mere mix of molecules, or a particular combination of proteins. there is indeed something magical about being human.

it may be odd, it may sound peculiar, it may seem downright dumb, for those of you who haven't had the magical experience of being drawn into Harry Potter's world, that i dare claim these things -- the magic of being alive and human, the very answer to what it means to BE human, in a child's story -- but it's true. it's there for anyone with eyes to see...

often, i joke to kids on my IM chatlist that i've found the fabled fountain of youth (usually when they ask how old i am!). but i also tell them it's no secret what, or where, this fountain is. it's simply looking at life with the fresh eyes, and heart, of a child.

so kids, go read Harry Potter. the summer stretches out its welcoming limbs for you to rest on... but it won't last forever. for now, don't grow up too soon.

live in magic.

{ net.casting }
^