Channeling Harry Potter

Universal Studios in Orlando Florida just opened a new attraction for all of us who are Harry Potter fans—The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. The author of the Harry Potter books, JK Rowling, has toured the attraction, as have some of the major actors in the Harry Potter movies, and they were suitably impressed. One of my Facebook friends from high school just got back from visiting Hogwarts with her daughter. They posted a lot of photos and I must say that it looks impressive and just made me want to get on a plane to get there to experience it. I have read all the books and seen the movies and I know how I want it all to look. And it sounds and looks that way from the news and photos http://media.universalorlando.com/harrypotter/news.php and http://www.universalorlando.com/harrypotter/.

Reading the Harry Potter books was a magical experience—I cannot recall being so immersed in a fantasy world as I have been in the world of Hogwarts. I have read The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy and they fascinated me, but the world of Harry Potter was far more appealing to me. I shared the experience of each book with several friends here in Norway and with my sister in New York. I remember plowing through either the sixth or the seventh book on a flight to NY one summer—the hours just flew by. My sister has excellent recall for most of what happened in the books; I do not. I remember the general storylines and the characters but am not good with all the story details or the chronology of the stories. But that doesn’t seem to matter somehow, because it is the atmosphere in the books that you remember best and the relationships between the main characters.

My sister and I have met in London England several times during the past ten years. On one of those occasions, she brought with her Harry Potter jellybeans. I think they actually had a different name but I don’t recall it now. What I do remember is sitting in our hotel room tasting the different jellybeans—several of them quite nauseating—perhaps not so surprising since one of them was supposed to taste like vomit. We were like kids daring each other to taste something disgusting. We also took a trip to Cambridge on a train that left from King’s Cross Station in London. It was at King’s Cross Station that we saw the 9 ¾ platform, which is apparently the platform that the train to Hogwarts used. It was cool to see it.

I don’t think we ever really grow so old that we cannot remember what it was like to be a child and how amazing it was to discover a book or books that captured our imagination and heart. I think that experience as a child marks us for life. You remember those books for always. For me, The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland and Treasure Island, among many others, stand out as books that set the stage for a lifelong interest in reading and fantasy literature.