Harry Potter Parking Lot

There's a film called "Harry Potter Parking Lot" made by the same people who gave you "Heavy Metal Parking Lot." If you're not familiar, the basic theme is to visit a parking lot outside of a large event and interview the most avid fans of this event. In "Harry Potter Parking Lot" the filmmakers stood in line outside some J.K. Rowlings book signings and let the kids just gush about how much they love Harry Potter. Many of them are dressed as book characters, clutching wands, reciting spells. One boy holds the book open for the camera and recites the first page perfectly.

I just don't know what it is but I'm addicted too. The sad part is, the movies only make it worse. Those kids seriously ARE Harry, Hermione, and Ron. But on top of that, I actually get to SEE them grow up. They were 12 or so when this began- they're 17 now. Someone popped in the first movie the other day and I just kept saying "look how young they are!" over and over and over.

If I were to make a movie, and the only pop-culture reference in it were Harry Potter, I don't even think it would date the movie later. I think it would be as if I referenced Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia. That's how big Harry Potter is. He's epic.

I've been seriously considering how I'm going to handle giving the Harry Potter series to my children (that I might have, one day). Would I have the strength of will to give them one book each year so that their life corresponds with Harry's? Because that's one of the most 'magical' features of the series, right now. My little brother has actually grown up at the same rate as the books have been published. When he got to the end of one, he couldn't just pick up the next one and move on to the next year- he had to wait. And when he did get to the next one, he was a year older as well. Harry's social problems were changing at his rate- he started noticing girls at the same time and everything (as far as I know).

So there. I'm going to post the fifth book here because it's the one I don't own. I need it quite badly. Harry Potter has been taking over my weekends for almost a month now and I need to stop all this blubbering and be productive. RE-reading isn't productive reading, and it was a stretch to consider reading kids' books productive in the first place.