User blog comment:JoePlay/Wizarding World Giveaway/@comment-4173633-20110720075054

I was a child when I began to read the Harry Potter books. I remember being in second grade and dealing with being in a new town and new school, and feeling content upon bringing home the book from my school library. As being a little kid I was drawn to the first cover I glanced at; being The Chamber of Secrets. So I got home and asked my mom to read it to me. My life had been messy since I had moved, and my mother and I were never close, but one thing that allowed us to bond was reading Harry Potter. When I was younger she'd take time out at nights and read them to me. Upon hearing the first movie was coming out my mother got some money together and promised to take me to see it. She and I left the movie having something to talk about. As she and I read more of the book I began to collect Harry Potter toys, book marks, notebooks, anything Harry Potter, the chocolate frogs, bertie botts every flavor beans, and everything I could. If a holiday came up Harry Potter something, was on the list. It wasn't a book series that became a franchise because of the "Romantic Character Plots" or the ACTION, or the "Hot" characters, which other books have become sadly famous because of. No, it was a book made for all ages, children and adults to read and feel the warmth of the characters. Characters that we all understood and could relate to. Everyone knew someone growing up who was a bit of a "know it all" who was very smart and always seemed to know the answers to the teachers questions. Everyone knew someone who was middle class, funny, nice kid, a bit scared at times but always there for their friends. J. K. Rowling painted characters in our heads with little bits of physical information but the simplicity of characters we all knew and could connect with, understand and feel love for. It's a simple thing to write a character that doesn't exist, but to make characters that come off of pages and into the hearts of readers world wide; that makes a character exist. She didn't just do that with 3 characters. She did that with an entire other world. A world, that isn't perfect. There's war, death, poverty, murder, no sugar coating, no perfect other world. But a story with an easy to relate to world of characters, dealing with things like we deal with. There wasn't a Fairy tale happy ending to ever book. There wasn't a fairy tale happy ending to the final novel either. It ended with a war finally ending, death to many innocent characters we'd all grown to love and an honest reality and meaning. Harry Potter, whether I like to admit it or not, really taught children a lot. There was a lesson thrown into situations while you read that influenced children to do the right thing and taught us right from wrong in a hidden way. Harry Potter became a big thing in my entire family, living with my grandmother and mom and little sister, my mom read them to my sister and I as young children. My grandmother saw the first movie and then decided to read the books, for my mother, grandmother and I never enjoying reading, and still not really enjoying reading; Harry Potter was the exception to the rule for all of us. My mother still hasn't read a book she has been able to read and say she enjoyed, since reading the The Deathly Hallows within 5 days starting the first day it came out off of Pre-order. My mother and I now a days still aren't close, but the one thing we do still do together is go and see a new Harry Potter in theaters. With the final movie being out already, we went to see it a day or so ago. With money being tight it was hard for her to tell me that we couldn't go to a midnight showing, because of money problems. We've never and now will never get to go to a midnight showing. I heard it was a ton of fun from a few friends. But upon the day i got to go I donned some House colored nails of Slytherin's Green and Black, my Slytherin Jacket and an old Harry Potter T-shirt and my family copy of The Deathly Hallows and went to the movie more excited that I've ever been to see the final movie with my mom, grandma and little sister. After the movie we spent the entire night talking about the movies and books and reminiscing about them all, my childhood and how I've grown up with the characters and how I'll be graduating and leaving next year. It's funny to think back on being a little kid. We can do it. I can sit there and remember playing my hand me down gameboy advanced and watching the rugrats. Childhood was a long time ago but it isn't hard to forget. It's just that I never really cared to notice the evolution of me growing up. How fast it really has seemed to fly by. Walking out of the theater I began to cry. I don't cry often, but I began to cry. I realized walking out the movie theater doors I had grown up. I grew up along side Harry, and Ron, and Hermione. They all grew up, their adventure was over, a new chapter began in their lives. Children, families, they were adults and I realized, I'm grown up. I'm not the little kid I was when i began watching the movies and reading the books. I wasn't the little 7 year old who wanted to escape her life through platform 9 and 3/4. I soon will be leaving and beginning a life on my own, in a big world. Like Harry to the Wizarding world, it'll be new experiences for me, things will be scary, and there'll always be challenges to overcome and battles to fight, but I've grown from these books. I learnt so much, and due to the series, I know that although my mother and I don't really get along, she'll always be there for me. I'll always have a wonderful memory to remember, that ever time a new Harry Potter book would come out or the next movie in the series, my family would bond together, read the books,argue over who got to take the one poor copy, and read it at what time. And how, whether together in the same room or scattered through my house, if one of the movies was on, we'd all be watching it. And the one garantee that when we'd go out to see the next new one in the series it was the one time no one would fight, problems would be forgotten for the day and we'd all have one thing in common to get along and talk about.