Counting the Days by Mary GrandPré, official HP illustrator
The first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, was released when I was thirteen years old. For four years I actively resisted reading Harry Potter because I thought the hype was terrible. When I was seventeen years old and going to university, I discovered that several of my classmates, who were a couple of years older than me, were also reading Harry Potter and they were quite enthusiastic about it. So, back in 2001 I picked up my first Harry Potter and I was hooked. By this time, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had been released and the first film for the series was just about to come out.
When I went to the shop to buy my first Harry Potter copy, I found out that there was a special sale and that I could get two Harry Potter books for the price of one, so I bought the first four in one go. They were paperbacks, which are my favourites, and in a day I was extremely glad I’d bought all four of them at once. I just couldn’t put them down!
Although I prefer paperbacks over hardcovers, I own the last three books of the series (HP and the Order of the Phoenix, HP and the Half Blood Prince, and HP and the Deathly Hallows) in the latter format, since I was just unable to wait for the paperback editions when the new books came out.
I own the British children’s editions, with the amazing colourful covers. Whenever a new book was about to come out, the cover would be pre-released and immediately analysed by legions of fans. In the case of the Harry Potter books, it is true that part of the content of the story can be cleverly derived from the cover art. The children’s edition’s cover would also be compared to the cover of the adult edition. Furthermore, due to the fact that J.K. Rowling, the mastermind behind the series, had woven an intricate web of story lines and had taken quite a lot of care with the details (like names that held certain meanings), it was possible to pick every book in the series apart and even predict what would happen in the next installment. Forums on website were being flooded with theories on who was going to live and who was going to die.
J.K. Rowling was very good with publicity. She wasn’t overly present, but when she did do a reading or an interview, she was careful to drop little hints that could be thrown into the discussion on the progression of Harry’s story. It almost felt like a whodunit, figuring out all the clues and hints and how they fit into the story line.
Then there are the films. Of course, they are not nearly as good as the books, but they have a certain je ne sais quoi. Certainly the first three films make me feel like a little child again. After the third one, the films become increasingly dark, because as Harry matures, so do the readers and they can handle a bit darker and a bit scarier. With the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 2 in July of this year, the Harry Potter phenomenon has reached its end. Or has it? I don’t think so. These stories can be read year after year after year, and never become old. I guess I’ll keep my series of Harry Potter books for the next generation.
Scholastic coverart for HP and the Deathly Hallows, U.S. ed. also by Mary GrandPré
