It's been about 18 years since I first met The Boy Who Lived. My little brother -- he was about 9 at the time -- introduced me to Harry Potter, and lent me the first few books. By book four, I wanted my own copy, so I bought it, and The Philosopher's Stone too, with the book voucher Mr K gave me for our first wedding anniversary (it's the paper one). When he saw what I'd chosen, Mr K said "what did you want that for? You've already read it!" But I had to have copies of my own. And from book five on, I had my copies on advanced order at my favourite book shop.
I have the full set now, of course -- the ones with those distinctive colourful spines that are so instantly recognisable as Harry Potter -- taking pride of place on my bookshelf, now flanked with my very own wand made the other day at Harry Potter Day at South Library (Miss Missy didn't want one, but I did!). And I have read them all over and over.
So when I first heard about an eighth Harry Potter, I was so excited! But then I found out that it wasn't exactly going to be a novel, and it wasn't exactly by JK Rowling, and...well, I had my doubts. Could it be as good as the others? Would it really -- count? Did I even want my own copy?
Well, Harry Potter Day decided matters for us. As well as getting sorted -- Miss Missy into Ravenclaw, and The Young Lad and I into Hufflepuff (the perfect houses for us all, actually) -- making wands, and drinking polyjuice potion, we were treated to a wonderful storytime reading from Scene One of the Cursed Child. At the end, Miss Missy looked at me and said
After this, we are going straight to the book shop!
And we did!
We decided we were both going to finish the books we were already reading first, so we didn't actually start till Friday. I took it to work to read at lunch, while Miss Missy had teacher only day, and finished reading Mocking Jay in anticipation. During the weekend, we started out taking turns with the book, but ended up sitting side by side on the couch reading on the same page together. Miss Missy was always just ahead of me, so there was lots of gasping and squealing, and then waiting for me to catch up. There was even occasional page-covering when it got too exciting (does anyone else do that?) At 10 o'clock on Sunday night we had to force ourselves to stop, and on a cliff-hanger too!
If you'd asked me what I thought while I was reading Act One, I'd have said I was enjoying it more that I expected, but less than I'd hoped. Because I really had hoped that somehow, once I started reading, the words would scurry round the page and reform themselves into the kind of Harry Potter story I was used to. Magical as Harry Potter is, of course that didn't happen. But after getting past the first bit, where I felt I needed the director telling me what he wanted so I could better understand the stage directions, not to mention my annoyance that important things and people seemed to be being ignored -- and got to the REALLY good bit! Well! It's just as exciting and magical, occasionally funny, a little bit scary, and a little bit sad, as any of the other Harry Potter books are.
I really have started to forget that I'm reading a play -- even though the words are staying obstinately still -- and just enjoying!
If you are one of the almost 200 people who've been waiting for it to arrive at the library, the wait is over! I unpacked our copy this morning, as did librarians all round town. And I'm sure you'll enjoy too!
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