Thursday, November 12, 2015

So Happy, Yet So Sad


Warning!
This Post contains spoilers.
If you plan to read the Harry Potter books,
but haven't yet,
STOP READING.

It's over. We're done. Finished...

As a family we've been enjoying the Harry Potter books, on and off for several years now, and we recently reached the end of HP and the Deathly Hallows.

Sigh.

We've read or listened to all 4,224 pages (according to Scholastic) and fallen in love with JK Rowling's incredible characters.  

I'm so proud of my nine year-old daughter. She just couldn't wait to finish listening to some of the books, so she grabbed each book off the shelf and read them herself. There was no way I would have even attempted an 800 page book when I was nine, but she was determined to know exactly what happened. Keeping secrets was hard for her. She knew Dumbledore died; she knew Snape had a good heart; yet somehow she managed to keep quiet about it. (I'm still in awe she was able to keep her mouth shut.)

Coming to the end of the story was a wonderful thing: learning secrets and coming to know the truths that seemed impossible; to know who lived and who died, and how good managed to triumph over evil. Yet, at the same time, reaching the end was awful. The tale is over; there's isn't any more. 

The kids are genuinely sad that they've reached the end of Harry's story. And while the thought of introducing them to new tales with wonderful characters excites me, there's just something about Harry, his friends, Dumbledore, and Snape that's going to stick with us. I hope for a very long time...  

2 comments:

kate said...

My son was 9 when he read the series as well. I think I wrote a blog post about it - he wanted to thank JK Rowling I recall. It is a great series.

Allie-oops Designs said...

I tried, I really tried to read them - so did my boys - but after reading Lord of the Rings, these books just didn't do it for us. I think we read Tolkien when the boys were 6 and 8, and just loved them so much, the beauty of his writing and depth of characters is wonderful. I first read The Hobbit when I was 8 - followed, during the next three days, by LOTR - and have re-read them every year since. Rowling just couldn't compare for us.