Harry Potter: Friends and Foes *spoiler alert*

The next two books on our syllabus are very dear to me because I read both series with my husband, who is ordinarily not a fiction-reader. I think his opinion of children's literature pre-Harry Potter can be summed up by this clip from the Onion:



Adults Go Wild Over Latest In Children's Picture Book Series

When "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" came out, the Starbucks where I work stayed open until 3am to help caffeinate the Barnes and Noble employees and their eager customers. We made a special menu board of magical drinks and dressed up in costumes to celebrate the event. My dear spouse was a little taken aback by all the excitement, particularly in the adults that couldn't wait even one day to get their copy. He resolved to read the series from the beginning so that he too could enjoy the final chapter of the saga. I had only read the first three novels, so we undertook the project together, and spent hours and days in cafes and diners, reading through lunch, coffee, pie, dinner, more coffee, leaving generous tips - anything so that we could keep our comfortable little reading nook to ourselves.

There are two elements in both series that we both found thoroughly engaging: the sustaining friendships in both series (and especially in the Golden Compass, the daemonic suggestion that a person can be his or her own best friend), and the capacity for moral ambiguity in heroes and villains alike. The Deathly Hallows contains my favorite revelation about a morally ambiguous character, Severis Snape, but the Prisoner of Azkaban offers two very compelling cases in Sirius Black and Remus Lupin.

In Prisoner of Azkaban, the reader learns that Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, the makers of the Marauders Map, are none other than James Potter and his three best friends, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black. These are the people who meant to James Potter what Ron and Hermione mean to Harry. By identifying these key figures in his father's life, Harry gets to know his father a little better, and also gains insight into the nature of his own friendships. Why does Rowling choose to shroud Professor Lupin in mystery and saddle Sirius Black with such dark suspicions? In the dark times of Voldemort's reign, somehow these friends were wedged apart from one another, at the hands of Wormtail, Peter Pettigrew, or as he is more commonly called in Harry's world, Scabbers the rat! Rowling offers a warning here against cowardice and deceit. Pettigrew is seen with disgust and repulsion, he was unworthy of his friends. Readers see that friendship must be loyal and brave, even against unspeakable evil. It is better to die, to travel life impoverished and alone, or to rot in prison, than to sell out one's friends.

But Harry's friends bear little resemblance to Wormtail. Lupin trusted his friends with the secret that he is a werewolf, and they became animagi to keep him company on lonely full moonlit nights. Similarly, Harry's friends do not judge him for his ability to speak parseltongue, the vilified language of snakes. Sirius found a new family among his friends, as Harry does among his. A hero needs a community, a connection to reality that makes his fight meaningful. He needs to feel that his life means something to someone. Like Ged needs Vetch, or Frodo needs Samwise Gamgee, Harry needs Ron and Hermione around to help him complete his quest. The nature of evil is to obscure, to confuse, to make ambiguous even those things that are essential. The hero fails when his vision is clouded and he no longer knows on what or whom he can rely. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry begins to see why his parents lost their battle, how their communal bonds were weakened and dissolved from the inside. And he makes that discovery with his best friends by his side, becoming stronger and more aware together.

My favorite children's book(s)

This is the blog in which I will contribute to my classroom community and share my thoughts about the texts we encounter. Although I hope to reach a level of sophistication in my thought process that reflects a measure of maturity and education appropriate to my age, I also would like to maintain the spirit of the genre by striving always to approach the text from a child's perspective.

Thinking back on the books that affected my own childhood, it is difficult to pinpoint a favorite. My mother purchased the children's illustrated classics collection, which formed the cornerstone of our children's library, while my father read to us every night from a variety of authors from William Shakespeare to Harper Lee to J.D. Salinger. We also read and re-read picture books such as Blueberries For Sal and Ferdinand, and everything we could find by Shel Silverstein. On my own steam I read dozens of Nancy Drew mysteries and Babysitters Club novels, as well as our school's collection of Newberries and Lone Star selections.

The one book that I feel had the greatest impact on my personality and character development is Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. I strongly identified with the sister relationships in the novel. I spent most of my childhood attempting to emulate Beth in her charity and patience, while continually finding myself a Jo: a bit too wild (and a bit too literary) to truly fit in. Little Women may be the reason I became an English major at all. Or else it was a major part of the children's library that so captivated my attention that I never much developed any significant hobbies other than reading.