I'm not proud.
Little did I know that 16 years after I graduated high school, I would nearly cry when a copy of Markus Zusak's new book arrived on my porch on its release date - cry because it's so pretty with it's pastel coloring, is sharp undamaged cover (I'll take care of that very quickly), and it's been 13 years since The Book Thief was published, so it's about dang time Zusak releases another book. But also cry because I love reading and rejoice in books now.
(I'm almost 100 pages in and my current report is that it's very "Zusak," it's unfolding slowly, and my final opinion will all depend on where it ends up. But I am very enthusiastic about Achilles the mule, though I personally wish he were a goat).
So how did I transition from anti-reader to avid reader?
The answer is simple: Harry Potter.
Bless you, J.K. Rowling for fixing me. It wasn't just J.K. Rowling, though. I also have to give Dan Brown some credit because, before I read Harry Potter, I read The DaVinci Code. It was the first book I'd read from cover to cover in probably over a decade. I was taking Survey of Western Art in junior college, so The DaVinci Code fascinated me. I didn't know how to properly utilize a library at the time, so I went to Barnes and Noble after school two days in a row and read The DaVinci Codei there.
Back to Harry Potter, though...
I was 13 years old when the first Harry Potter book was released. I didn't hear about it until I was a sophomore in high school. People at school were reading it, but I had no interest, and it sounded very silly and childish to me. Plus... books, meh. I'd rather watch talk shows and make out with my boyfriend than read about wizards.
The next year, the first movie was released.
I didn't care. But at some point, the DVD ended up in our house, and someone sat down to watch it, and I was in the room. I didn't watch it on purpose, I swear! But I also didn't leave the room, and by the end, I was like, "Whoa! That was really good!" So over the following years, I watched the second movie and the third. I also flipped through Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone while I was on the toilet one day, but that's all I was willing to do.
At the time the third movie was released, I'd gotten married and read The DaVinci Code. After I finished that book, I found myself wanting to read, but I couldn't find a book I liked. I kept going back to Barnes and Noble and trying different books, but I couldn't find anything I loved (I did read Angels and Demons, though). I was telling this to my mother-in-law, and she told me to read Harry Potter. I scoffed. I was not going to read Harry Potter, but she begged me and promised I would love it.
Over and over again, I told her no, thank you. But she wouldn't relent, and she practically threw books 1-4 in my lap. I finally said, "Okay, I will try reading book four." I refused to read 1-3 because I'd already seen the movies.
My pride was sure crushed when I read book four and loved it.
And I loved book five, and book six, and book seven.
And now it's been a whole decade since the last book was released, and I've been fighting my own children to read Harry Potter. Nicky and I have butted heads over Harry Potter for years. I've tried and tried to get him to read them, but he refuses to read anything but Diary of a Wimpy Kid (I do enjoy Diary of a Wimpy Kid - we love listening to the audiobooks - they are quite funny, but they are no replacement for HP!)
I tried reading Harry Potter to Nicky twice, but he refused to listen and would roll around on the floor like a dog the whole time (both times we made it to Diagon Alley and then I gave up). One of his biggest reasons to not want to read Harry Potter is that - in his words - "I don't understand British accents."
I've had this argument with him dozens of times... THE BOOK IS NOT WRITTEN IN AN ACCENT! except for maybe Hagrid's dialogue, but c'mon, kid! You can read the book in WHATEVER ACCENT YOU WANT!
My mother-in-law told Nicky if he would read all the Harry Potter books she would take him to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter. This technically isn't possible because if she did it for him, she would also need to do it for her 402 other grandchildren, and that's not really financially nor logistically feasible, but it doesn't matter because Nicky wasn't interested at all. His response was, "I don't want to go to Harry Potter World, I just want to go to Disneyland, and I can't understand British accents anyway."
Nicky's other argument for not reading HP is that he claims he already knows everything about it. To this I said, "Fine. I will ask you one question about Harry Potter, and if you answer correctly, I will never bug you about it again."
He agreed, so I asked, "What are the seven horcruxes?"
He then listen seven random animals. So I continued to nag him about reading Harry Potter.
Then one night, Nicky started asking "If I bla bla bla, will you take me to Texas Roadhouse?" and I said, "I'll tell you what... if you read the first Harry Potter book before the end of September, I will take you to Texas Roadhouse."
An offer to go to Harry Potter World didn't do a thing for my child, but an offer to buy him country fried steak at Texas Roadhouse did. So on September 30, he finished the last three chapters of Harry Potter, and guess what! He loved it. He won't say he loved it, but I know he did because he talked about it constantly, and he confessed that he really didn't know everything about Harry Potter, and the twist at the end really threw him!
Now he's on chapter 8 of the second book, and I'm celebrating the fact that it didn't take til his early twenties like it did for me.
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