It’s the final hour and all is quiet on the streets of Tampa. On any other summer evening, one might expect to hear children laughing and playing in the streets, with games of kick the can and tag running on into the wee hours of the night, but not this week. Nope, instead you’ll find these very same children huddled over Mom’s sewing machine, anticipating the final creation – a bright wizard’s cloak that, upon donning, should likely transform them into one of Hogwarts’ own! Eagerly awaiting Friday night like it were Christmas itself, they pour back through countless chapters that their favorite hero has already encountered and wonder just what exactly will be in store for one Harry Potter in his next to last year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry…
I’ve got to tell you, I’m certainly excited, and it’s not just because I, too, am dying to know what will happen next to Harry and his friends! Frankly, it’s hard not to get excited because, really, when was the last time that we got this geared up about reading?! If you really think hard to look back, sure, maybe there have been a few cult followings that were fairly well anticipated – the latest from Stephen King, for example – but never before have readers young and old been this psyched up about a book release, so much that they’re dressing up in character, throwing release parties, and even naming their children after the beloved students from Hogwarts! It’s insane…
…and let me tell you exactly why it’s insane – because here in a summer when countless have failed at the box office already and countless more will certainly fall to the same fate before it’s all over, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is predicted to bring in numbers that most film directors only dream of! Mind you, the book is scheduled to be released at 12:01 AM on Saturday – Scholastic plans to sell ten million of them this weekend, and at an average of $15 a piece, yes, that’s right…$150,000,000 right off the bat, opening weekend, for a book! And for those who like to discredit such predictions as over ambitious, well, it’s been reported that several million of those have been attributed to pre-order sales through Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, etc… I don’t know how to tell you this, Mr. Burton, but Charlie and the Chocolate Factory doesn’t stand a chance!
Of course, it’s even staggering to think that the previous five books in the series has already amounted to some one hundred million copies sold for J.K. Rowling, and as a fellow writer who couldn’t even imagine dreaming of figures like that, my hat is off to her. This weekend, her latest book will likely sell more copies by the hour than most writers will see in an entire lifetime – it’s a measure of success that most anyone would deem incomprehensible. But nonetheless, regardless of the Scrooge McDuck amount of coin that she’s destined to from the Harry Potter franchise, I think at the end of the day, Miss Rowling has justly earned a far greater bragging right to wear on her belt…
She’s somehow managed to get people interested in reading again, on an impressively wide scale, and the best part of it all – it’s not just kids, either. Moms and Dads are reading with their children, grandparents are picking up these massive tomes just to see what all of the fuss is about, and even childless folks like me have somehow gotten wrapped up in the fairytale world of wizards and warriors that has been crafted ever-so-meticulously before us. For the first time in who knows how long, parents find themselves torn because they’re no longer telling their kids to put down the video games to come to dinner – it’s put down the book and come to dinner, and what parent in their right mind is going to tear their child away when they’re actually reading on their own?!
Of course, there are a few cases where this has been exactly the situation, and although I’ll only touch briefly on them here today because it doesn’t seem right to allow them to bring down the spirit, I do think it’s important to mention that all of you religious zealots out there with your insecurities just need to lighten up. If you’re honestly afraid that a children’s book is going to seduce your young ones with witchcraft and yoink them away from the bible, then you’ve got far bigger problems on your hands! Try looking at your own scripture and perhaps ponder why it might be that the kiddies are far more interested in reading fiction than what you’re pounding into their skulls every Sunday morning. I think kids deserve more credit than that, but if you’re so insecure about the child who happens to have a vivid imagination, then I just don’t know what to tell you…
But for the rest of you, there’s really nothing that I’ll need to tell you because chances are you’ve already got that pre-order slip in your hand and the cloak around your shoulders. In fact, I’ll probably be lucky if I can even get you to read next week’s column…that is, unless of course you’ve already finished Number Six half a dozen times and by then once again find yourselves wildly anticipating the final chapter in this beloved series. While you’re waiting, though of course, you might just pay a visit to your local library and check out some of the other wizard-bound novels to grace the shelves – they may not be as popular as young Harry, but hey, they entertained my kind back in the day!
Happy reading…