30 Days of Harry Potter Meme - Day 1
Jumping on the bandwagon!
30 Days of HP Meme
01. Discuss how you got into Harry Potter.
My first exposure to the Harry Potter books came when I was nine years old, in third grade. It was 1999, and back then the series' popularity was mainly due to word-of-mouth praise. I went to the library (at that point known to me primarily as the "liberry," and my favorite place in the world), and my mom, who had heard good things about HP, had me check out the first book. I glanced at the cover, and gave her a withering look.
"Mami," I said indignantly, "is this a book about a boy?"
You see, when I was a third-grader, female protagonists were very important to me. Boys were icky. They belched the alphabet and splashed in puddles and called the girls mean names. I could barely tolerate them in real life; why on earth would I want to read a book about one? And this was a popular series. Ew.
Well, I still can't explain why nine-year-old me thought that being popular was a good reason not to like something, but the point is that I read the first three chapters of PS/SS to placate my mother, despaired in the lack of strong female characters, and told her to take it back to the library. Clearly, Harry Potter wasn't for me.
Fast-forward one year. My parents were about to start a new job that would involve us going abroad for a year, after which we were moving to California. Most of our things were in storage in my uncle's barn, and not much could come with us, either to Puerto Rico for Christmas, or afterward in our temporary home. We went to my grandparents' house in Maine for Thanksgiving that year, and the Saturday following, after my other cousins had gone home, my grandparents told my brother and I that we were each allowed to open one Christmas present early, since we were leaving the country and should have something special with us. My present was large and rectangular, wrapped with colorful paper, and quite heavy. I eagerly tore into it to discover a boxed set of the four Harry Potter books - paperbacks for PS/SS and CoS, and hardcovers for PoA and GoF.
I was slightly disappointed, but it really was a beautiful boxed set, and it must have cost a lot of money, I rationalized, so I might as well give it another try. I started from where I'd left off the last time: Chapter Four: The Keeper of the Keys. The chapter in which we discover that Harry is wizard (something I'd somehow never managed to figure out by then). I should mention that when I was in elementary school I was crazy for magic; Halloweentown on the Disney Channel was my favorite movie, I pretended I was a witch (and called myself Samantha Cromwell in these games, because it sounded more like a proper witch's name), and I wanted nothing more than to wave a wand (or my hands) and make something happen. That's when ten-year-old me realized that this wasn't a series about a boy, it was a series about a boy wizard. This immediately excused Harry's Y-chromosome, and I set to devouring the book at once.
As much as I mutter under my breath whenever the media dismisses HP as "children's books," I have to admit that even as a ten-year-old nothing had caught my imagination like that before. It wasn't that HP got me into reading - I was already a voracious reader well before I ever caught sight of PS/SS's cover. It was that HP was different from anything I'd ever read. I went through those books like there was no tomorrow. I read every spare minute I had at my grandparents' house, then at my own, and then at recess at school. My dad had to drive up to Maine for a weekend to drop off some more of our things; I sat beside him in the passenger seat, reading intently, and even asked him to turn on the dome light when it got dark so I could find out how the Second Task turned out. By the time two weeks had passed, I was finished with the series - and completely addicted. I had caught the HP bug, and there was no going back.
02. Your favorite book
03. What house would you be in?
04. Your favorite movie
05. Wizard Rock: discuss
06. Your favorite character(s)
07. Song that reminds you of HP
08. Your favorite ship(s)
09. Fanfiction: discuss
10. Favorite book moment(s)
11. Character you're crushing on
12. Favorite movie scene
13. Least favorite character(s)
14. Moments in the books/movies that made you cry
15. Whatever tickles your fancy
16. How have you participated in the fandom over the years?
17. Your favorite celebs from the movies or fandom
18. If you could change one thing about canon, what would it be?
19. A favorite fanart
20. A favorite quote
21. How has the HP fandom connected you to other fandoms, interests, or people?
22. Your favorite villain
23. Share some HP icons
24. Rant about Steve Kloves something
25. Song that reminds you of HP
26. What aspect of the books has been best translated to film?
27. What aspect of the books has been most poorly translated to film?
28. Hogwarts subject you would most like to take
29. Favorite location
30. Whatever tickles your fancy
30 Days of HP Meme
01. Discuss how you got into Harry Potter.
My first exposure to the Harry Potter books came when I was nine years old, in third grade. It was 1999, and back then the series' popularity was mainly due to word-of-mouth praise. I went to the library (at that point known to me primarily as the "liberry," and my favorite place in the world), and my mom, who had heard good things about HP, had me check out the first book. I glanced at the cover, and gave her a withering look.
"Mami," I said indignantly, "is this a book about a boy?"
You see, when I was a third-grader, female protagonists were very important to me. Boys were icky. They belched the alphabet and splashed in puddles and called the girls mean names. I could barely tolerate them in real life; why on earth would I want to read a book about one? And this was a popular series. Ew.
Well, I still can't explain why nine-year-old me thought that being popular was a good reason not to like something, but the point is that I read the first three chapters of PS/SS to placate my mother, despaired in the lack of strong female characters, and told her to take it back to the library. Clearly, Harry Potter wasn't for me.
Fast-forward one year. My parents were about to start a new job that would involve us going abroad for a year, after which we were moving to California. Most of our things were in storage in my uncle's barn, and not much could come with us, either to Puerto Rico for Christmas, or afterward in our temporary home. We went to my grandparents' house in Maine for Thanksgiving that year, and the Saturday following, after my other cousins had gone home, my grandparents told my brother and I that we were each allowed to open one Christmas present early, since we were leaving the country and should have something special with us. My present was large and rectangular, wrapped with colorful paper, and quite heavy. I eagerly tore into it to discover a boxed set of the four Harry Potter books - paperbacks for PS/SS and CoS, and hardcovers for PoA and GoF.
I was slightly disappointed, but it really was a beautiful boxed set, and it must have cost a lot of money, I rationalized, so I might as well give it another try. I started from where I'd left off the last time: Chapter Four: The Keeper of the Keys. The chapter in which we discover that Harry is wizard (something I'd somehow never managed to figure out by then). I should mention that when I was in elementary school I was crazy for magic; Halloweentown on the Disney Channel was my favorite movie, I pretended I was a witch (and called myself Samantha Cromwell in these games, because it sounded more like a proper witch's name), and I wanted nothing more than to wave a wand (or my hands) and make something happen. That's when ten-year-old me realized that this wasn't a series about a boy, it was a series about a boy wizard. This immediately excused Harry's Y-chromosome, and I set to devouring the book at once.
As much as I mutter under my breath whenever the media dismisses HP as "children's books," I have to admit that even as a ten-year-old nothing had caught my imagination like that before. It wasn't that HP got me into reading - I was already a voracious reader well before I ever caught sight of PS/SS's cover. It was that HP was different from anything I'd ever read. I went through those books like there was no tomorrow. I read every spare minute I had at my grandparents' house, then at my own, and then at recess at school. My dad had to drive up to Maine for a weekend to drop off some more of our things; I sat beside him in the passenger seat, reading intently, and even asked him to turn on the dome light when it got dark so I could find out how the Second Task turned out. By the time two weeks had passed, I was finished with the series - and completely addicted. I had caught the HP bug, and there was no going back.
02. Your favorite book
03. What house would you be in?
04. Your favorite movie
05. Wizard Rock: discuss
06. Your favorite character(s)
07. Song that reminds you of HP
08. Your favorite ship(s)
09. Fanfiction: discuss
10. Favorite book moment(s)
11. Character you're crushing on
12. Favorite movie scene
13. Least favorite character(s)
14. Moments in the books/movies that made you cry
15. Whatever tickles your fancy
16. How have you participated in the fandom over the years?
17. Your favorite celebs from the movies or fandom
18. If you could change one thing about canon, what would it be?
19. A favorite fanart
20. A favorite quote
21. How has the HP fandom connected you to other fandoms, interests, or people?
22. Your favorite villain
23. Share some HP icons
24. Rant about Steve Kloves something
25. Song that reminds you of HP
26. What aspect of the books has been best translated to film?
27. What aspect of the books has been most poorly translated to film?
28. Hogwarts subject you would most like to take
29. Favorite location
30. Whatever tickles your fancy