Four people in my house have read every Harry Potter book, and the other three are not far behind. My oldest daughter became an early fan (by U.S. standards) when I purchased the first book for her at a Borders in Arizona. None of the clerks could tell me anything about the book at the time, except that is was popular in England and Borders had ordered a whole bunch of copies. It was heavily discounted, so I took a chance. When she reached her third reading of the book, we started wondering what it was about Harry Potter that was so enticing.
When Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released, I happened to be in Salt Lake City. My oldest son and I had just finished a rain-soaked hike in the Uinta Mountains, but we managed to locate a Borders that was having a Harry Potter Party, and we purchased two copies at midnight. Although I eventually read all of the books, I am always the last to have a turn. My son and daughter (whom we retrieved from camp later that day) both read that book all the way back to Wisconsin.
This year, we misunderstood the date of the release and went searching for the book in Sweden last month. Once we had the correct date, we realized that we would be on the road, somewhere between Wisconsin and New Mexico. So this Friday, our family will be staying at a hotel in Lawrence, Kansas, and we are on the waiting list at Borders for two copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
I hope they ordered extras.
Edited: PC
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Aaman
That's why Amazon is so nice,especially with Amazon Prime
Enjoy yr read -methinks it will be good
2 - Pat Cummings
I have removed Amazon links from within the body of this post.
3 - Temple Stark
Good read Gordon.
Seven is a lot of people and it must be something extraordinary for all to have caught on and enjoyed.
What are the age ranges, or at least the lower ages when your kids started reading? Just curious.
I have yet to read any of them but I remember my first experience of seeing one in a child's hands. I think it was the second book, maybe the third and I remember thinking, "Damn that's a big book. There must be something good in there and if it's getting kids to read. Great." Sci-fi and fantasy has that power - to allow the imagination to take flight. It's amazing.
4 - Gordon Smith
TS, Our oldest was 10 when she started reading HP. Our youngest (twins) are now 9, and they are just getting into them. I expect this release to be a motivation for them.
5 - HP Loco
Who is RAB? I have a hunch it is Regulus (middle name ?) Black.
6 - H P Loco (again)
I also have a hunch that the next book is going to be suprisingly long. I think that harry is going to find the other horuxes (and destroy them) over the summer and kill voldemort once and for all! Yay!
7 - craig
if RAB is r and b then i think its could be rodolphus and bellatrix. as in the lestranges. dont know why theyd turn ont heir master tho... works wif the two people thing too...
8 - pete
RAB is most likely Regulus Black, Sirius' younger brother. This would make sense because JK doesn't want to introduce another *hero* so late in the book and Harry would love another Sirius. Regulus *died* trying to leave the Death Eaters and at some point he inhereted a priceless heirloom (HORCRUX?!?)...
in addition, Snape is not evil. I still believe Dumbledore on this point... reread the books and examine the clues... ;-)
9 - Tony
To the comment above. How could you possibly believe Snape to not be evil. He KILLED Dumbledore under his own power. If that's not evil, I don't know what is.
10 - Cam
i think snape is innocent, one major give away is at the end of the 5th book where snape warns the order that harry and the others have gone to the ministry when he could have easily just left them to be killed by the death eaters
11 - jdr
genius. pure genius. after reading number 6 and contemplating it and reading your comments its all piecing together. Harry Potter is Harry Potter if ppl dont like it then thats up to them but it is what it is. Having done A-level english I have read far more intellectual stuff but that doesnt matter because JK ROwling is an absolute genius. Bring on book 7(the magical lucky number!)
12 - Dan
Have you considered that Voldemort doesn't want anyone to kill Harry because. . . Harry is a horcrux?
13 - cam
nahh thats not very likely... but as i think about it that might be possible and relate to his scar
14 - jdr
i have certainly considered he may be a horcrux himself. it would make sense. When he was attacked part of voldermorts soul was left in harry which explains parseltoungue etc. i think the whole mystery surrounding snape is amazingly done by JK. She keeps leading us down the wrong garden path and now the debate will rage for 2 years whether he is good or bad. for me everything adds up. He is Good. If the greatest wizard of all time trusted him thats good enough for me. He had his reasons and on that fateful night on the tower HArry, Malfoy and Snape were all effectively saved by The greatest wizard of all time throught his actions. think about it.
15 - Dotty
I thought Harry might be a horcrux but then when I think about it, how would he have become one? If the scar had anything to do with him being a horcrux then that all goes back to when Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby. Although Voldemort had killed Harry's parents before killing Harry so making a horcrux would have been possible, Voldemort intended to kill Harry and didn't expect it to backfire as it did. So why would he make a Horcrux out of someone he fully intended to kill, wouldn't be much use to him.
16 - Rick
Slughorn said "there is a spell, don't ask me what it is...". If the Avada Kedavra rebounded on Voldemort and nearly killed him right away, how could he have cast this spell to make Harry a horcrux? I got the impression that you do the killing first to rend your soul, and then cast the spell to put the torn piece in some other vessel.
17 - Rick
Of course, he had just rent his soul twice, only moments before...
Wouldn't that make it so that Harry can never destroy him without dying himself?
Rowling might go for the Pyhrric victory I suppose. How awful for the kiddies!
18 - Dotty
Harry being a horcrux would almost certainly mean that Harry would have to sacrifice himself to kill Voldemort, which I have a feeling might happen anyway. Would be an interesting plot twist but I still don't think he is one, unless he was made one later.
Two more things struck me as being quite significent, the first is that Olivander disappeared, if you remember Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, when Voldemort tried to kill Harry, because their wand shared the same core it kind of backfired. Does this imply that Voldemort and Harry can't kill each other with those wands? So has Olivander vanishing have something to do with that?
Also, why didn't Voldemort intend to kill Lily? Seeing as she was part of the Order of the Phoenix as well as James, and between them they had defied Voldemort 3 times why didn't he intend to kill her as he did James? She was muggle born as well, so he should have been even more happy to kill her then the pure blood James. It seems very odd that he didn't intend to kill her, it's hardly as though he's merciful.
19 - chipwith
I think Snape is not evil but there are plenty of debatable clues throughout the books.
Harry says that his potion book was 50 years old - too old to be his mother's. (I hope I have that right, I don't have the book with me now). Therefore, it is too old for Snape to be the Half-blood Prince either. He is the same age as Lilly and James (20 - 30 years older than Harry I would guess). The Half-blood Prince must be Voldemort and Snape must have been lying as he retreated from Hogworts after the battle with the Death Eaters.
20 - vincent
as much as i hate to say it, i think snape is a good guy and he only killed dumbledore because of the unbreakable vow made to malfoys mum. also he taught 6th years nonverbal cause he knew that was a necessary tool to dueling.
i came across this site wondering who RAB could be and once again i was surprised not to have remembered regelus. but surely hermione would have found that out?
if dumbledore knew malfoy was a DE, then he shouldve filled the rest of the staff in on it.
thanks also to a previous post bc i have learned what phyrric victories are!
21 - swimmo13
to counter your point, chipwith-
people get out of hogwarts at 17 years of age. Let's say that when Harry's Parents and Snape were 17, Voldemort was also young-ish, since he is so much younger than Dumbledore. Rowling writes that it was about 10 years after they got out of school that Voldemort started making appearances. The potters would be 27. Say that in 7 years, they "defied" him 3 times, as the prophecy says. That would sound about right. So they are now 34. In 16 years, Harry would get the book, making The Potters and Snape 50 years old.
22 - Cambria Cappos
What about the possibility of Borgins or Burke being the elusive RAB? Riddle worked for them after he had discovered the possibilities of a Horacrux and had access to the valuable artifacts of the dark world he was looking for. It was also stated in Hokey's (the House elf) memory of Tom Riddle that Burke knew that Hepzibah possessed the locket of Slytheryn. Burke could simply be a stragically placed good guy who has access to the dark world. He did seem to be afraid of Draco's threat in his shop, perhaps meaning he is not entirely in alliance with the Death Eaters. Just a few thoughts to ponder
23 - Miller
At first I thought it was Burke, just because his last name fit and he was so connected to special artifacts. But the brother of Sirius fits as well, as he's got the right initals and he was killed by Voldemort.
I used to think that Snape was good because Dumbledore trusted him. But I always considered Voldemort to be Dumbledore's equal, and they both trusted him equally. One of them had to be wrong, and there's no reason to believe that Dumbledore has so much better judgement than Voldemort.
Then again, you need to look at the situation. He was in a room with four death eaters. He would have to take on all of them to be able to spare Dumbledore. He could have looked at it as either he and Dumbledore die, or just Dumbledore dies and he continues spying.
24 - tubr
Dumbledore seems to have known his way around the cave pretty well. He knew he needed Harry with him. H eknew he would need Harry to obey an order Harry would not want to obey. He had a good reason to believe in Snape and he has not been wrong yet. It seems to me Dumbledore sacrificed himself to plant Snape deep in Voldemort's confidence. He may also have led Harry through the search for the horcrux to set him on the right path.
It seems likely, from Harry's duel with Snape at the end, that Harry has no chance in a direct duel with Voldemort, and that Snape is a much more accomplished wizard than we might have thought. I have a feeling that it will be Snape who helps Harry defeat Voldemort in the end.
25 - Jason
I too believe that RAB will probabably end up being Regulus, and from what i remember of the 5th book, while Sirius and the kids are cleaning up the black house, it mentioned a locket which could possibly be slytherin's