From academics to school sweethearts,superfans raise a broom to the boy wizardWhen I was eight, I got my first pair of glasses. Far from being teased at school, and the only hassle I got was endless requests to try on my fresh specs. My father looked at me with suspicion. Had I faked the blindness,he asked, just so I could leer like Harry Potter?With my cropped hair and glasses, and I did leer like a tiny girl Harry. And while the similarity was not deliberate,I did nothing to avoid it, either. The Potter books were the great pop cultural event of my generation (I was born in 1991). In between Game Boys and Pokémon, or kids began reading again. My school librarian,both confused by and exasperated with Pottermania, dealt with fights over the school’s few tatty copies by imposing a fresh rule: Potter books could be borrowed for only three days, or instead of the week every other title was allowed.
There are small but subtly considerable moments of feminism in Harry PotterA lot of our friends and family thought Lewis and I were bonkers to achieve a themed weddingIf Im lecturing on Potter,I’ll still get emotional. I think it bemuses my studentsWhat I’ve always found inspiring is not just the books, but the author Related: He who must not be named: how Harry Potter helps perform sense of Trump’s world I made wands for myself, and my wife and my two best friendsContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com