All In The Family

We were given the first Harry Potter book when Peach was about 2. Seeing as I could barely stay awake for three pages of People magazine, I put it away, intending to read it with her when she was older. As the subsequent books came out, I was either knee-deep in reading 24/7 for LawNerds or dozing off after Olive’s umpteenth request for Goodnight Moon, so we never bought any more of the books or saw any of the movies.

Then, when Peach was in her first year at GGMS, she found the first book in the school library and recognized it as “that book that Mommy always says we’re going to read together,” so she scooped it up and finished it in two days. Without me. After that, it was game on, and she blew through the rest of them in a matter of weeks. Without me.

The good thing about waiting as long as we did to even start the series was we never had to endure the agonizing wait between books – Peach just went one to the next, right through to The End. However, she read them SO fast that I, her weary mother, am still on Book 5, and she so wants me to finish that she can barely contain herself and keep from spoiling anything. Still, I’m lucky that I have such a wise and enthusiastic guide because that’s a fat lot of characters to keep up with. I’ve been reading the series aloud since Book 2, usually during bath time, so both Peach and Olive have been tutoring me in all things Hogwarts and just think it’s hysterical that I can’t get it all straight in my feeble Muggle mind. And as for the movies, once we determined that they weren’t tooooo scary (because, let’s face it, they kinda are), we’ve screened them all at home, with the exception of the latest release, which we ventured out to see on my birthday.

All this to say, I love these books* and these characters so much, I wish they could continue on forever. And live next door to me. And while I bit the bullet and saw the Book 6 movie before reading the book, I was still surprised by The Big Event therein because while I already knew it was coming (thanks to some a-hole DJ who blurted it out as I was flipping by his station one day), I assumed it was coming in Book 7. So I cried anyway and was in no way disappointed in the semi-lack of surprise – other than that The Big Event had to happen at all. Sniff.

And so it was that this morning, Mama Turista, the most ferocious of all readers, called me in tears on her way to jury duty. She just finished Book 6 in the wee hours last night, and I had to put Peach on the phone to talk her down.

* OK, J.K., I just have one criticism. Sometimes, your wonderfully imaginative descriptions tend to run on and on and on – all in one sentence. Which is difficult to follow if a: you’re dumb, like me, and can’t keep it all straight; and/or b: you’re trying to read aloud and not pass out in the middle of a most-critical Quidditch play or self-aggrandizing monologue by You-Know-Who. Just sayin’.