Three of Fifty-Two

 Books
Harry Potter Series

When I was young I hated reading. couldn't stand it. Spent all my time avoiding it.I'm not kidding when I say taht for some reading projects, right up until year 7 (first year of hogwarts) and maybe a little later on things that were just awful, I had my mom do it while I pretended to listen.
Then my english teacher, Mr Mills, told the class about harry potter.
He said that it was a fun, exciting book that we'd love.
Of course I was sceptical. I'd heard that sort of thing before; "Shakespear is an amazing read" and "Cat in the Hat is suitable for children of all ages" but both I found tedious and boring. Nonetheless I borrowed the first book from my school library.
What I discovered will shock and amaze you; I was good.
It really was fun. It really was exciting. I really did love it. I grew up with harry potter. when he went into his first year at hogwarts I went into my first year, when he went into his second year I went into mine. It continued like that until book five when J.K. took a year off and the books became bi-yearly.

Since my initial read of the original harry potter books I've read all of them the number of times that they are in the series (i.e. I read book 1, 1ce, book 2 twice, 3 3 times, etc...) as I read the series again after watching each film.
The films weren't great, but they probably would have been a lot better if I didn't love so much of the books.
Don't get me wrong the books weren't particularly well written, but they had a great story. I even liked the last book, believe it or not. Wasn't crazy abotu the 18 years later scene, but I can cope with things designed to make little kids be ok with the rest of the book.

The films weren't amazing and the games were fairly awful - not including the lego ones, they were alright. Fun rumor about the lego harry potter games; the head of Travellers Tales allegedly turned the contract to make the game down because making a game about witchcraft conflicted with his christian views, until an additional 0 was added to the pay cheque at which point there was nothing wrong with making a game about fictional witches.

In reality the harry potter books are the reason that I'm a writer today - but if I get famous; don't tell J. K. that. If I'd never read them it could be argued that I wouldn't have read other things, fallen in love with writing and written 3 books. one of which is self published and 2 of which are being edited and sent off to agents as we speak - still no word back, but hey I'm sure it'll be fine.

Apologies for my absence yesterday. I was at the science museum and then I was asleep.
Magical-Video
- James