Book #26: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Now, this is OBVIOUSLY a re-read. My mom always laughed at me when I was a kid because if I ever was bored or didn't know what to do, I would head back to HP and read them again. I have probably read HP #1 maybe eighty times now (no idea, just guessing). But it has been a few years since I have revisited them myself, and I have been meaning to for a while. Recently, I have been feeling like reading some non-challenging, fun and easy books, and it felt like a great time to revisit my favorite series.

I was a huuuuge Harry Potter fan as a kid. I don't remember when I first got the first book, but I remember getting the second and third books when for what must have been my eleventh birthday. And man, I was hooked. I have vivid memories of my first time reading many of the Harry Potter books--I remember reading the fourth book in the front seat of the car driving down the 5 freeway with my mom, and panting with fear as Harry began facing off with Voldemort in the graveyard. I stayed up all night long to read someone else's copy of Harry Potter 5 at girls' camp, because it came out while we were there and some lucky girl brought hers with her (and that night was the only chance I would have to read it). The sixth book came out when I was at Cornell doing a high school-college seminar and I bought it at the student bookstore with my own money, and some mean kids in the dorms made copies of the page where Dumbledore dies and hung them up all around the dorms to surprise the kids who hadn't read it yet. And when the 7th book came out, I went with my sister and some cousins to the midnight party at Barnes and Noble to buy a book (turned out we weren't allowed to buy a copy because we hadn't registered beforehand--but we did get some great HP glasses that they were handing out as party favors). Look:

Hahahaha, this was such a long time ago!

Long story short, I have a longstanding relationship with the whole Harry Potter series. I am seriously looking forward to the day when Dane is old enough for me to start reading them out loud to him. (But there are LOTS of books I can't wait to read to him--Little House on the Prairie is another one.) 

As I have been reading the books again now, at the ripe old age of 25, one and a half decades past when I was first introduced to them, I have been thinking about why they were so captivating to me. I think this first book was a masterpiece of creating a world. It is pretty amazing to read how amazingly specific everything is in the wizarding world, from the appearance of the Hogwarts train to the currency--Galleons, Sickles, and Knuts. My favorite chapter in this book has always been when Harry goes to Diagon Alley for the first time (and it may still be my favorite chapter in the whole series). It is just so fascinating to finally get a look at everything the wizarding world has to offer, and J.K. Rowling does not disappoint with every last detail that she provides about the stores and products and people that Harry sees and meets there. 

I love that these books are filled with these sorts of interesting plot points which are not necessarily significant to a major plot development later, but they are just included because they help to round out the characters and the setting and the world they live in. I feel like that is something that I notice a lot about YA books (like the many, many dystopian novels that are all the rage right now)--they speed from moment to moment throughout the story and nothing is included in the story unless it will turn out to be especially significant later. I love that the Harry Potter books, this first one especially, is more focused on developing the characters and everything about the setting in addition to racing you towards the climax of the book.