Like so many in the world i am completely obsessed with Harry Potter. I started to read the books when i was a freshman in high school, which i can assure you did not help my social status at all, not that i really cared. I was one of the crazy people that you saw on the news waiting at midnight for the newest book to come out, or the movie to be released. at one book release there were so many people waiting to find out what happened to Harry that we could not all be in the building because of the fire codes.
The question is, in a world where teenagers are supposed to be digital natives, constantly on their computers, how was JK Rowling able to intrigue us all with the simple story of harry potter and his journey in the wizarding world?
The basic story of HP for those that don't know, is Harry is orphaned at the age of one when his parents are murdered by the main villain in the series, Lord Voldermort. Harry has no idea about his because he is taken into the muggle world away from everything so that he will be able to grow up 'normal'. When he is 11, Harry is told about who he really is and begins his wizard training at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Over the next seven years the reader follows harry through his school years and his battle against his parents murder.
What always interested me was the way that JK Rowling was able to make Harry and the rest of his wizarding friends seem like everyday teenagers. We get to see Harry go normal teenage stages: his first kiss, the fantastic teenage angst and his first love, all set in the background of a magically world. This reminded me of the Marc Prenski article where it is said that all teenagers have a similar experience. How could a boy wizard and I have the same experience? Well sadly i have never battled a dragon or been attacked by a rouge bludger that was bewitched by a house elf, but i have had to deal with the awkwardness of having a first crush, feeling like no one, not even my best friends understand what I'm going through and felt like adults were hiding thing from me because i wasn't 'mature' enough to handle the truth, and (at least on Harry' s part) learning how to deal with the deaths of people that were close to you.
There has been a lot of discussion about the role of women in harry potter, as all the main characters who get all the action are male, but I'm going to stand up for my girl hermione. If you've ever read the books you know how many people have called her the brightest witch her age, and frankly if it weren't for her brains harry and Ron probably would have died in the first book (devils snare anyone). Throughout the series it is Hermione's brain that saved...pretty much everyone at some point.
The idea that for teenagers living away from their families, their schoolmates become a new family is obvious in HP. Hogwarts is a place where the students live during the school year and they have their own little cliques which substitute their families. All communication with their families at home is by owl post (there is no electricity at Hogwarts so no email for these guys!) so if you want to know whats going on at home you need to be patient. Friends are important to any teenager which is one of th reasons that Harry Potter can be read by older people. In fact im going to be bold enough to say that teenagers probably get more out of the books then small children who are just reading it of the entertainment factor. Dragons, elves, wizards and quidditch are all seen as fun for the young kids, but at least for me it was the situations that harry had to deal with that made the books worth reading. over and over and over......
and just because this is awesome:
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