User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4148175-20110714205802

Do you remember the Scholastic book fairs that came to your elementary school each year? For me, I looked forward to it even though I rarely bought anything. It was 2001 and I was 9 years old – that year, I bought something. This bookmark. http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_loc3uch2pi1qzdrzao1_500.jpg

I’d seen the previews for the Sorcerer’s Stone on TV, and immediately I knew that it was something different. I almost never cared about the movie previews I saw, but this one stood out. A 30 second television spot for a movie changed my life. I saw it, and that’s all it took. I can’t imagine my life without Harry Potter.

After seeing the first film, I quickly found out that it was based on a series of books. The most I’d read up to that point were small chapter books, required school reading. I was in the 3rd grade that year when my best friend gave me “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” (As a couple of 9-year-olds, we apparently didn’t have much concept for chronology in books. I might also add that I continue to be best friends with this girl 14 years and counting.) It was hugely intimidating – over 300 pages, the biggest book I would undertake. But I sped through it, crouching over it in every public place, hungrily consuming every word. If the movie hadn’t changed my life by then, this did – I can directly thank Joanne Rowling for turning me into a reader. From that day on, I always had a book on me and I always read. In fact, it inspired me as much that I felt a physical craving to invent a story half as magical and encompassing as hers. I feel this has lead me to be a writer, and ultimately brought me to think and imagine on deeper levels at a very young age. I know it shaped who I am. (It should be noted that Prisoner of Azkaban is still my favorite book in the series behind The Deathly Hallows.)

I could continue to bore you on with the story, but you know how it goes. I read all the books up to that point (in order this time), and got the newly released ones the day they came out. I saw every movie the opening weekend. Daniel Radcliffe became my first little girl celebrity crush. I was Hermione for Halloween. My brother bought me a giant Harry Potter poster for my door that still hangs there. I wrote a letter to Daniel Radcliffe, and even though I got the depersonalized automatic reply (which still hangs on my wall), I will still note with pride that he wrote my name and address on the envelope (which I saved, of course.) The only thing I did on the Internet, something new and fresh to me at that point, was surf Mugglenet and Potter related forums. It was my life.

Even as I grew older and developed more interests, it was always there. It had literally became a part of me that, though I might not think of it daily, was still a happy reminder when it crossed my mind. The day Deathly Hallows came out, I was leaving on a 10 day van trip to Florida with my church. I bought it in the morning and read it all the way there and back, the entire 15 hour drive. I remember crying quietly, closing the book while my peers slept in the van, and watching the ocean fade away behind me. I was 14 years old.

Now, I’m 18 and the final movie comes out tomorrow, I'm going to the midnight premiere tonight. There is nothing I love more than the fact that I am experiencing this with everyone everywhere – every single person like me who literally grew up with Harry Potter, and now watch it close as our childhood does, too. Daniel said it perfectly at the Deathly Hallows premiere, “I don’t think the story ends tonight because each and every person will carry this story with them through the rest of their lives, and it will affect what they do.”

I know for a fact I will raise my children on this story just like I was. It’s a story of love, friendship, and bravery. What better thing to pass onto your children than a story as magical as life itself can be?

So every time I crack open a Harry Potter book or decide to reread the series, I fish out this bookmark. There was a time when I used it with every book I read, a reminder for what brought me there in the first place. Now it is a designated, special thing – falling apart and battered, a prized possession I only bring out for the books that deserve it. I’ll use this bookmark when I read the books to my children, as well.

“The stories we love best do live in us forever, so whether you come back by page or by the big screen, Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home.” – J.K. Rowling