An Anniversary, and Reading Children’s Books

by chiefbuttons

Ten years ago on Friday (21st June 2013), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released at midnight. Ten years is a long time, but it doesn’t feel anywhere near as long as the three-year wait for Order of the Phoenix after Goblet of Fire came out in July 2000. For almost three years, I kept countdown charts on my walls whenever Mugglenet tentatively announced a possible release date. About three of those turned out to be false, but I’d carry on making them and crossing off the days anyway. I’ve kept all of the (real) Harry Potter countdown charts I made in a folder, along with bits and pieces from newspapers, book receipts, and any other interesting things I came across that were to do with the books and the films (I also kept some Lord of the Rings things in there).

A friend of mine at school first introduced me to Harry Potter in 1999, when I was eleven, and there were three books. By the time the fourth book came out, I was twelve, and I had read the first three so many times that even the librarian at school noticed that I must really like them. I used to play a game in the evenings where I’d read for a bit, then ask my dad to guess how many pages I’d read, and he would play along and always act surprised. I’d always been quiet, and I’d always read a lot, and there were very few things that would make me kick up a fuss about how much I liked them. One of those things was music in the car; it was Rush, Ronnie James Dio, or nothing. The other thing was the Harry Potter books.

If we went for days out, I would be made to leave my book at home because reading made me car sick but if I had a Harry Potter then I’d read anyway and we’d have to stop the car. Once, when we had to go somewhere, I insisted on getting to the end of a paragraph, and so my dad took the book off me (it was Chamber of Secrets). They joked that if I ever did anything wrong, grounding me wouldn’t work; they’d have to stop me reading Harry Potter for a bit.

I’d always been a big reader, so I can’t say Harry Potter changed anything in that respect. What I did enjoy was that one of the main characters was a child who liked books and who liked to try hard at school. I was roughly the same age as the characters as the series progressed, which made them even more relatable than they already were. It also described an incredibly positive school experience in terms of good classes and good teachers (with the exception of Gilderoy Lockhart). Apart from the magic, it was quite realistic too. Who hasn’t had a teacher they’ve been terrified of (Snape), or an incredible and inspiring teacher like Lupin? J. K. Rowling was a teacher herself, so she probably had a lot of experiences to draw on. And I know it isn’t the most well written thing in the world, but it is good storytelling; most of the characters have been written with an incredible amount of empathy.

If I try to write any more about exactly why I love these books so much, I’ll probably fail horrendously. The end result is still the same; I was excited and I wanted to know what happened at the end. I needed to know. Also, queuing at midnight was incredibly exciting.

By the time the fifth book came out, I was the same age as Harry. And it was my first midnight release (I was too young when the fourth book came out. Also I had had THREE YEARS to prove to my parents how much I loved the books; all the re-reading meant I could recite the Sorting Hat songs from memory). My mum and two of her friends took me and my best friend to Waterstone’s in St. Anne’s Square, Manchester, which is now sadly a HSBC. Anyway, my friend and I had been taken to Manchester, with our now quite tatty pre-order receipts, and we waited for the book. There have been very few times since then when I have felt as excited as that. I’d read the first four goodness knows how many times (the third had been my favourite), and the fourth had even ended on a cliffhanger! And we had had to wait THREE YEARS to find out if the Arabella Figg mentioned by Dumbledore at the end of Order of the Phoenix was actually Harry’s old neighbour and babysitter Mrs. Figg. It totally was. But I needed confirmation! And what was with the brief look of triumph in Dumbledore’s eye when he discovered that Voldemort had come back with some of Harry’s blood?

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, by J.K. Rowling.

I got it, and I read it in a weekend. It was incredibly satisfying, and gave me something else to re-read while waiting for the next two. Although from that point on, re-reading Prisoner of Azkaban would be quite emotional.

During my teenage years, I didn’t just read Harry Potter. When I was eleven I also discovered a series of books called The Edge Chronicles, and if you have a small child, a younger brother or sister, a niece or nephew or ANYTHING you would be doing them a disservice if they never had the chance to read an Edge Chronicles book. There are eleven books; three follow a young orphan called Twig as he grows from being an outcast in the Woodtroll village he was left in to a Sky Pirate Captain of his own ship. SKY PIRATES. YES. There are sky pirates. Three books set in the time before Twig’s adventures follow Quintinius Verginix (Quint) as he studies in the FLOATING CITY of Sanctaphrax to become a Knight Academic. Three more follow Rook Barkwater as he makes his way up from the slums of Undertown to become a Knight of the Free Glades. The tenth book is a collection of short stories involving these characters and others, and the eleventh brings them all together and is amazing. The Edge Chronicles will probably get their own blog post.

Map of The Edge from The Edge Chronicles (the map changes, depending on which book you read. This is from the Twig trilogy). How could you NOT read a book with a map like that in the front?

Another children’s book that will probably get its own blog post is Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. And like a lot of other children in school, I read a lot of Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton. My parents were pretty much responsible for my book habit, and my grandparents were more than willing to feed it. If I ever went out with my nana and grandad, I would more than likely come home with a book. The Phantom of the Opera was a favourite, and my nana bought me hardback copies of every Harry Potter book, and gave me pre-order money for the new ones. She got me my first few Edge Chronicles too. My gran bought me beautiful copies of His Dark Materials too, another set of books that I grew up reading and can happily re-read.

For me at least, as a child there wasn’t a gift better than a book. Apart from maybe a really good Polly Pocket.

Mermaids in a book.