User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4166583-20110718225005

Harry Potter is not a movie to me: it is first and foremost a book series. Many people will profess to be Harry Potter fans but I guarantee you that more than half of them have only seen the movies, which barely scratch the surface of the wondrous world that J.K. Rowling created. What J.K. Rowling did with Harry Potter was create a whole new world on par with that of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings fantasy. Tolkien not only wrote books, he created a world, different races and languages, an entire history of a world that only ever existed within his imagination. J.K. Rowling did very much the same thing with Harry Potter, though not quite to the extent that Tolkien did, and no one can ever truly appreciate what she did without having read the books. Rowling took a child’s imagination and put it on the page in plain black and white for all to share. She showed us, in a series of seven beautifully written books, that our imaginations can easily become reality, should we but give them the chance to come to fruition. She taught us to trust in the pure friendship of childhood, to hold stock in unceasing bravery and unyielding will. But most of all, J.K. Rowling taught children around the world that you don’t have to be a grown-up to do something amazing. You don’t have to be a grown-up for your dreams to come true. I think it can be easy for us to forget that some of the most amazing accomplishments in these books were done by teenagers. Neville Longbottom, seventeen, cut the head of the last Horcrux. Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, seventeen, helped find and destroy the rest of the Horcruxes. And Harry Potter, seventeen, defeated Lord Voldemort, against all odds. Beyond being a book series, Harry Potter is my childhood: I grew up with it, read and re-read every book at least five times each, anxiously awaited the DVD release of each movie and, for both parts of the Deathly Hallows, tread as excitedly as a first-year into the theater for the midnight premiers. It has been a journey through life for me, and I have grown up with each of the Potter characters, seeing more of myself in them every year, even as I matured into a young adult in college. My journey with Harry Potter helped me find the unceasing, unyielding will I needed to get myself into Stanford and has helped me to maintain that will through the long nights, the disappointments, the days I thought I should just give up. I have never felt stronger, more alive, as I do when I read about Harry Potter and see so much of myself in him: loyalty, kindness, and love even for the strangest and most unlikely characters. Harry Potter is more than just a movie. Harry Potter is more than just a book. Harry Potter is childhood, innocence, courage, and, above all, the will to succeed.