To Elizabeth...

...who stayed up until a very early hour to finish the last book in the Harry Potter series! 

(P.S. I, Lydia, am still on book six, so no spoilers please.) 

Welcome to Hogwarts

For a Halloween treat, one of our local cafes dressed itself as Hogwarts School of Wizardry. 

Complete with floating candles. 

Looks like Peeves the Poltergeist may be up to mischief. He appears to have pantsed the wall!  

Calling all Wizards

What with school and life, our poor book club has been shoved to the back of the closet. But every once in a while I'll take it out, dust it off, and look at it with remembrance of days gone by.

Although the HBP Society is not officially meeting, we girls have together been enjoying reading through J.K. Rowling's modern sensation: Harry Potter.

In my experience, Harry Potter often gets brushed off as "not that great", "okay", or even "not that original." I know because for years I was one of those people. My Mom had read The Sorcerer's Stone when it first came out many years ago, and Elizabeth read it sometime after that. They both agreed "There's nothing wrong with it, it's okay." Then earlier this year Rachel expressed an interest in reading Harry Potter. And before I knew it, I was bringing the next book home from the library every week or two, (and they were getting bigger!) we were watching the movies, discussing plot lines, laughing at the jokes, reading the books finally, and just falling in love with Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dumbledore, and you can't help but love those Weasley Twins! And I asked myself: "Why did it take me so long to read these books?" At least I don't have to wait for the next book to be written like the early Harry fans.

For Rachel's birthday present we added the entire series to our library. Rach just finished book seven last night, Elizabeth just started book four, and I'm holding off on starting book three until I finish a book series about Merlin the Magician by Mary Stewart. Yes, there is a theme here.

  

Happy Reading (or watching.)

Here Ye, Here Ye!

Attention readers! The Harold B. Pricklepants Society is starting up again for the summer. We will be reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows to start, and from then on, who knows? It's summer and anything is possible!

"Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today."