Eight years ago when I was working at Borders.com, I turned to my next-door neighbor Beth, the children’s book editor, and asked her for suggestions for books to read with my then five-year-old, Jeremy. We were coming out of the long and wonderful Dr. Seuss period and were looking for something a bit more challenging. “What about the Harry Potter books?” Beth asked, referring to the then two book series that was starting to get attention here in the states. After Beth’s reassurance that the books would be okay (with a little parental editing of the scariest parts) for a five-year-old, Jeremy and I snuggled up in bed and began reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.
Flash-forward eight years and Jeremy is now quickly approaching high school and the six foot mark with alarming rapidity. This morning he woke up early, came to my bedroom, and for the final time we opened the last of the large and familiar tomes and brought the seven year-long Harry Potter saga to a close. When we came to the epilogue, I got sad and Jeremy took the book from me, and while I listened, eyes closed, he read the final few pages to me. It was a sweet bookmark to the eight years we had spent covering all those thousands of pages together.
The great gift of the Harry Potter books is that they, in many ways, brought back the dying art of reading. The idea of hours long lines and parties at midnight, all for the release of a book brings joy to my heart. Our nightly ritual of reading together has been one of the strongest bonds that Jeremy and I have shared, and though there were many other books we read in the past eight years other than Harry Potter, the Potter books provide the framework for our last eight years.
If you’ve got young kids, don’t stop reading to them even when they get older and more independent. Keep finding books that challenge both of you – there is something magical (no pun intended) and binding about the sound of the human voice reading from a book perched on your chest. Reading to or being read to by someone you love dearly is as good as it gets.
Thank you Harry Potter.