Laura and I both read straight through over the weekend, finishing the latest outing of Harry Potter this afternoon. My impression – this has left the realm of children’s books. Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s still great for children to read these books, but they have graduated into the world of full adult literature, with much darker themes and much more elaborate vocabulary. This has been Rowlings strategy throughout the series. The first novel was shorter, much lighter, with limited vocabulary and larger fonts. It was truly a child’s novel. As Harry Potter ages, the books become more mature in writing style.
The Half-Blood Prince does a wonderful job of explaining many of the mysteries remaining in the previous five books. The literary device Rowling uses is as clever as it is complete. Not very often do I read a passage and say, "Wow!", out loud. The same device also sets the stage for the seventh and final book, and the quest Potter must complete.
After staying up late first purchasing, then reading the book, I was ready for a nap. We had entertained my 14 year-old neice, Sarah, today, who is spending two weeks at the Governor’s School, and all three of us had sat around with our books. The reading and Governor’s school brought about very strange dreams during the nap. I dreamed that I owned JC Penny, and that we had captured and were keeping a strange gorilla-like creature in the basement. Under the influence of the Dark Lord, the creature had escaped, and was now terrifying the teenagers in the mall. In the dream, friend from when I was in Governor’s School (who, btw, in reality is now in China) mailed me some intricate origami figures, upon where were written spells which would counteract the Dark Lord. As my colleagues battled the dark forces, I tried to unwrap the origami in time to save them. Quite a dream for mid-afternoon.
With the release of a new HP comes the usual lunatics wanting to ban it for promoting witchcraft and satanism. Heaven forbid that it promotes something subversive, such as READING.