EEEEK!

In the middle of chapter 4 of "HP and the Deathly Hallows", my laptop beeped at me.

It was a reminder that I was supposed to blog today! Uh... [glancing regretfully at the book, which already holds the imprints of my clutching fingers on the cover]

Christine Norris has a lovely post over on the Beyond the Veil blog today, and expresses my feelings about the books much better than I could.

How dorky is my family about these books? Um, well, I, my daughter and my husband each have our own copies. In the past we bought one copy and passed it around. Not this time!

Last night was kind of bittersweet. As we stood in line at Meijer's (a big grocery/discount store chain) with three carts of groceries worth $30 each - we got a dicount on the book if we bought groceries - it was a lot less fun than past HP releases. Although the store had a party, a cake, a costume contest, etc., it wasn't the same.

In the little town where we used to live, we had an independent bookstore on the quaint town square that threw a big party with every release. It would close early that day in anticipation of re-opening at midnight. I, my daughter, and her three closest friends (I call them my auxiliary daughters) always set up camp at some ungodly early hour, like 7 p.m., right outside the front door.

For three straight HP releases, we were first in line. We spent our time cautiously sampling Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (actually, soap isn't half bad), handing out samples of warm butterbeer to other people who showed up (I found a recipe - disgusting), waving at truck drivers who honked, dancing, playing HP board games, listening to the HP movie soundtrack on my van's stereo, watching the movies on someone's laptop, and running across the street to get coffee and hot chocolate.

We would press our noses against the bookstore's decorated front window, dark except for a single candle which illuminated the waiting stack of books. So close, so far away!

This is the miracle of JK Rowling's books. For any other book release, would multiple generations of families have come together to party and celebrate like this? Does any other book series in recent memory have the ability to provide a common ground for families to come together. Who can watch a mother and her normally-sullen teenage children discuss the books with equal excitement, and not realize what miracle this is?

OK, enough of this. I really must get back to reading now... my daughter is already a hundred pages ahead of me!