Hogwarts Herald

Hello everybody. I wanted to tell you a little about me, and where I’m going to take this blog. I have been reading here, since I discovered the page, and have commented pretty regularly. I love comments. I love to make them, and I love to read and respond to them. If you leave a comment, or send me a message, I will do my best to respond within 24 hours.

I first discovered the Harry Potter books around the release of Book 4. I remember I was watching the Today show one morning and they had a little girl on the air. She couldn’t have been more than 8 years old. She was holding a copy of Goblet of Fire, which had been given to her illegally since it wasn’t due to be released for another 48 hours. That is how she made it onto Today, interviewing with Katie and Matt. I thought to myself, what kind of childrens book gets this much attention for an early copy sneaking out? I think I had been living under a rock until then as this was the first I had ever heard about these books. That very day, when I went to work, I found that no fewer than 5 of my co-workers were reading one of the first three books. Seeing this many grown adults, bill collectors no less, reading this supposed chidrens book… Well it piqued my interest. So that evening, I went to Wally-World, and bought the first book. I had finished it within 48 hours, and immediately bought the second. that too was finished in two or three days. By now, of course, GoF had already been released and I couldn’t find a copy of PoA or GoF anywhere. I finally begged my friend to loan me her copies, and she did, with the stipulation that I couldn’t take them home. I spent the next 6 work days on the phone, saying the same thing I said hundreds of times per day, reading. Since I didn’t have to think to do my job, it was relatively easy.

Suffice it to say, I was addicted from the first chapter. It helps, that I am a practicing Wiccan. Not that the books really relate to Wicca at all, it’s just nice to see books that are magically based, where the witches are not necessarily the bad guys. Plus I’m a big ol’ geek. We dress up for the movie premieres, and for the last book release party. There is not one of the movies that I have seen any later than 12:02am on the release date with my Hubby, and generally I go see them the next afternoon with my mom.

That being said, I am planning on continuing the read along that the previous writer started. I am doing something different though. For each chapter I will post two blogs, one of them will be an analysis of the chapter as it pertains to the series as a whole. It will contain spoilers, and it will remind us how things connect to one another. For those of us who have read the books more than once it will be a joy to delve deeper into the mind of J.K. Rowling, and the little nuggets of info that she planted to flower one, two, or even six books later.

The second blog will be for those that are reading for the first time. It will be the chapter through new(ish) eyes. I will blog it with no spoilers, no clues as to how the chapter pertains to the future of the series. I know that there are not a lot of you left, but there are some people out there who haven’t read the series. Three just where I currently work. I want those people to be able to read a blog about the series without having all those surprises ruined. I want you to have the same joy in figuring things out as I did, and the same discussions of “What do you think is going to happen?” that all of the rest of us did.

After each book, I will do a review of the movie in the same way, for those that have read the books, and for those that have only read up to that point in the books. Those will not only be reviews of the movies themselves, but things that were impotrtant to the book itself as well as the series as a whole, that were missed or messed up.

From time to time I also plan on doing updates for upcoming movies and events, and every now and then I might do a book review of something that is not a Harry Potter book, but something that I think HP fans will enjoy and what about the book, in comparison to the HP series will make you want to read it.

One last thing. If you have fanfic (family friendly please) that you would like to be read and reviewed, I am thinking about doing a regular segment on that as well. As you can see I have big plans for this blog. I hope that you are as excited as I am!!!

p.s. I also write another blog about the food network, come check it out!!!