User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4189830-20110723040514

For me Harry Potter means more than I could put into words. Like countless others, Harry Potter is my childhood. Harry Potter means an opportunity to escape from the world that we are in and enter one filled with magical creatures like bowtruckles, dragons and nifflers. Harry Potter means the first “chapter book”, as children always say, that I remember reading. It means having sticky notes on every page connecting the foreshadowing from Sorcerer’s Stone through Deathly Hallows. It means finding new things that make you cry every time you re-read it. It is begging every English teacher you’ve ever had (even in college) to let you write a paper on Harry Potter. It is getting dressed up for midnight releases and staying up all night until the book is over, sleeping a few hours and picking it up to start all over again. Harry Potter is more than a classic example of escapism, it is holding back tears for weeks after your eleventh birthday and then telling all your friends that the problem was that Erol had some trouble crossing the Atlantic and therefore surely your letter was just a tad late, but then later crying on your mother’s shoulder asking why your letter never came at all. It is feeling a tiny surge of pride inside when you read about Harry doing his summer reading under his blanket with a flashlight, while at that moment you are under your blanket with a flashlight. It is making your own mousey brown hair a little more bushy than usual so you can go to school and be the first to shoot your hand into the air just like Hermione’s. It is spending hours making S.P.E.W. buttons, weeks planning a Harry Potter party for the end, and days crying afterwards because there are no more books to read or movies to criticize for not having your favorite part. Harry Potter has been a part of my life for the past twelve years, two thirds of my life, and yet somehow I don’t remember a time before Harry Potter. I remember the day I got the first book more vividly than I remember my first kiss.