the harry potter era.

I was a sophomore in high school when this book first came out, in 1997. My mom read it soon after with my brother Danny, who was 11 — Harry Potter’s age in this first book. Yes, Danny was in that magical group of kids who literally grew up alongside Harry Potter. My mom told me to read it, and eventually I tried the book, but was unimpressed (I was kind of a literary snob back then).

I didn’t pick the Harry Potter series up again until years later, when I was out of college and married. I wish I could remember what made me want to give the books another try, but I think it had something to do with youth ministry and spending lots of time with teenagers (that will knock the snobbery right out of you). Anyhow, this time I was hooked from the start and tore through the books, collecting the series in hardcover bit by bit at used bookstores. I’ve reread the series in its entirety almost every year since. It’s one of my favorite traditions.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out in the summer of 2009. David pre-ordered me a copy and it arrived on our doorstep in Lititz, PA, the day the book was released. I was seven months pregnant and still as sick as in my first trimester, and basically parked myself in our hand-me-down recliner until I finished the book. It was every bit as good as I wanted it to be.

Two months later, Judah was born. Harry Potter has been across the world with us, lugged in suitcases from Lexington to Lititz, from the U.S. to India and back again. I remember seeing Judah’s eyes light up the first time he really saw the books I was reading — their covers a swirl of color and wizards and magic — and he asked, “Mommy, what are these books?”

Since then, he’s been an avid Harry Potter fan by proxy. He remembers details he hears about the characters and the movies, because he knows I love them. He studied the Harry Potter Lego sets in his catalogs until he memorized scenes. He recognizes the soundtrack when it comes on the classical radio station on Spotify. It’s like he’s always known Harry Potter would be something we’d share, just like my Mom and Danny shared the books all those years ago. And in the last few months he’s asked, “Mom, when can I read Harry Potter?”

I’ve gone back and forth about this decision, polling other parents to find out when’s the “right time” (and as you can imagine opinions vary wildly). Finally I decided that there’s no reason he can’t at least read the first three books in the series; they’re certainly no scarier than Star Wars. Our one deal is that he can’t read them last thing before bed. There’s a natural break, I think, between The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire, and after that I imagine waiting a bit.

So this afternoon Judah and I laid on the trampoline in the March sunshine and read chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’ve been waiting his whole life to be able to share it with him, and finally we’re here. He took off on his own after that and is on chapter 5.

My heart is happy. As soon as he finishes the book, of course I will pick it up and start at the very beginning, trying to see it all for the first time, through his eyes.