Tag Archives: J.K. Rowling

Intro to Harry Potter

Scarlett (who will be 7 next month) and I (who will be 43 in July-but keep that to yourselves) have started reading Harry Potter. She’s never seen any of the movies because I wanted her to experience these characters through the books first. Plus, she was just too young.

Even though J.K. Rowling is bonkers and kind of a horrible human being where trans-rights (among others I would suspect) are concerned, its still a great series and I’m excited to share it with her. I can share with her how Harry persevered, how Hermoine saved them all multiple times and didn’t get nearly enough credit for it, among other things that are so pivotal to childhood and finding your own way.

I pulled out my 20 + year old paperback copy from the shelf and immediately stuck my nose in the book to take a big whif. I love the smell of old books. Scarlett asked what I was doing and I let her stick her nose into the book. She scrunched her nose up and said, “that smells like bananas.” This is her go to response for anything that smells different than what she expects. I’m not sure why bananas, since she’ eats bananas regularly and knows exactly what they smell like.

Reading it outloud is very different from reading it in my head. I forgot about all the Irish and Scottish names. I stumbled over Seamus, even though I knew who he was and how to say it. I still said Sea-mus instead of Sha-mus. Honestly. I felt incredibly stupid in that moment. I’m simultaneously reading The Diamond Eye by Kate Quinn and having way less trouble with all the Russian. I don’t know what that says about me, but there it is.

She’s loving it so far. I think I might let her watch the movie after we’re done reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (or for my British/Canadian readers The Philosopher’s Stone). Not all of them, of course. We’ll watch as we read. I think that’s the way to go. She gets too emotionally invested and there are some dark things ahead. One book at a time.

I remember when these books came out. One of my friends, I’m not sure which book it was, convinced me to work the release party at Barnes & Noble. My future husband was there and he remembers me but I didn’t know him at the time. That’s so romantic that he remembers you, you might think. You would be wrong. He remembers me because I was dressed up as Professor Trelawney doing cold readings for 4 straight hours. There was a line out the damned door. A prelude to my side-hustle career of making shit up.

I can’t share experiences like that with Scarlett but we can make our own magic. I’m envisioning a trip to Universal Studios in our future.

Beauty and the Beast

I’m 38 and I’m way too excited for this movie. Way too excited. Let’s be honest, I was 13 when the original cartoon came out in 1991. Just old enough to have been indoctrinated with the lovable characters and remember all the songs by heart. Still singing them today, by the way. The Little Mermaid (which I can also sing by heart, btw) and Beauty and the Beast were the first Disney movies set up like a Broadway show. It’s effective! Just look at the opening number.

 

This is amazing and told little girls everywhere that it was okay to read and be smart. There’s something about this movie that resonates with me and has carved a place in my psyche that I’m not sure can be replaced.

Ross keeps asking why Disney feels the need to make live action movies of their classic cartoons. My simple answer is – because they can. If you could make a bazillion dollars off of an already known commodity, wouldn’t you? The simple answer is yes.

There’s something else though. You have an entire generation of women who didn’t get this movie rooted into their brains like the a tapeworm that just won’t let go. You do, however, have that same generation which has grown up with Emma Watson and Hermoine Granger. Harry Potter influenced an entirely new generation of young girls. Thank you J.K. Rowling for showing an entirely new generation that smart, pushy women were cool. That’s right, I’m giving her a shout out. And combining the two into one movie, is frankly, GENIUS.

Not to mention, the trailer looks amazing. That’s all I have to say.