Letter Blocks

[#1]

My name is John Granger and I have a Harry Potter story to tell. This one features a young woman with the last name Granger but she isn't Hermione. The heroine here is my daughter, Sophia Granger, and my tale turns on what she taught me about the take-away meaning of the world's best selling books.

Usually I'm the one teaching Potter lessons. I have written four books on the artistry and meaning of Joanne Rowling's novels. This week Penguin publishes the latest one, Harry Potter's Bookshelf , the project I have been working on since 2002 when I taught a course at the old Barnes and Noble University's (BNU) Harry Potter internet classroom. All the serious readers that met there -- parents, teachers, librarians, and students ages eight to eighty from around the world -- wanted a book that would simultaneously open up the depths of their favorite stories while introducing them to the Greats of English literature, in which traditions Ms. Rowling writes. Now that Bookshelf is in print, I'm delighted to come back to B&N online both to complete the circle started here and to share a favorite story from way back then.

I was living with my wife and seven children in Port Townsend, a 'Victorian Seaport' on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. I worked at home then as I do now, and, because my children were and are home schoolers, our lives intertwine pretty much all day long. When they were younger, I read to them at great length, especially the big books they loved: Harry Potter, of course, but also Brian Jacques' Redwall novels and Pyle's King Arthur books. I only started reading Harry Potter because my oldest daughter Hannah was given a copy of Sorcerer's Stone and I was obliged to read it in order to explain why we don't read trash like that. I was up all night with the book and the next day began reading it aloud to the younger set. Hannah and her older sisters devoured the books during the day while I worked.

By 2003, Harry was all but part of our family. I had read the first four books to the younger children and my first book on the subject The Hidden Key to Harry Potter  made me a member of the Potter Pundit club. I had started blogging at HogwartsProfessor.com, speaking at fan conventions, and moderating the BNU classroom with students around the world. I had even taught a Latin class in which we translated Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis, no easy trick even though my five teenaged students knew the story all but by heart. My youngest daughter Anastasia, then 8, had listened to the Jim Dale tapes of Stone so often that she could reel off whole paragraphs of the text whenever my Latinists struggled.

Frankly, though, that kind of thing didn't startle or concern me. While living on the Peninsula, we didn't have a television and even the oldest children didn't have access to the internet. Story -- the experience of books they read or had read aloud to them -- was the only entertainment they had outside of a movie they might see every blue moon. Their memories were good and attuned to the clever phrase. I had plenty of Harry Haters writing me after they had read my book to say my children (and all the children entranced by Harry's incantations) were hell bound but it was hard for me to take the possibility seriously. I imagined, I think, that the books and stories my children were immersed in were affecting them only as "profoundly" as I had been by the Hardy Boys and Batman as a younger person.

And then one day my daughter Sophia opened my eyes to how good the Potter stories were.

I don't mean "good" here in the sense of the aesthetic value of the prose or the genius of the plotting and artistry. Ms. Rowling never ascends to the majestic or even to heights much above 'workmanlike' and 'servicable' -- and if you've read The Deathly Hallows Lectures  or ever read Harry Potter's Bookshelf  you'll know already the high opinion I have of the themes and symbolism Ms. Rowling develops and employs masterfully to engage her readers. The "good" I mean here is just plain "good," as in ethically or morally good, even "virtuous" if that word isn't hopelessly anachronistic these days.

Sophia was ten years old and, like today, a whisp of a child. Everyone called her "Peanut" and it was meant to be an affectionate dimminutive. She loved roller blading and playing her violin, often simultaneously believe it or not, a handy trick to win change she learned when 'busking' with friends on the streets of Port Townsend during tourist season. Sophia rarely went anywhere in shoes when she could be skooting around on her roller blades.

Anyway, on the fall day in which this story takes place, I was charged with taking Sophia to her violin lesson on the far side of town. She jumped into the shotgun passenger seat of our big van with some enthusiasm because she rarely got to sit 'up front.' She was wearing roller blades, a sun dress, and a radiant smile and carrying her half-sized violin in its case which still seemed like an oversized suitcase in her hands.

I was not nearly as happy about the trip as my young charge. On the way to the violin leson I had to stop by a man's office and drop off some legal papers. I was obliged while there to confront this person with an unpleasant circumstance I had learned about which reflected on his honesty (in brief, he was cheating me in a hand shake deal we had made, much to my chagrin). I don't do confrontations well and was screwing myself up into a knot to get ready for this one.

Sophia, smarter than the average bear, was quick to pick up on my being nervous and edgy. She asked what was wrong and I explained in general terms that I had to confront someone with mistakes they had made and I didn't think the exchange was going to be pretty. I assured her it was nothing to worry about and that we certainly wouldn't be late for her violin lesson. We talked about other things and my mood lifted until we arrived at the big parking lot and the unpleasantness of the task to be done showed up again, too.

I sighed as I got out of the van with the folder and papers I'd brought with me. Sophia popped out of the other side without her violin and began to skate on the pavement, rolling backwards and doing the cross-overs she'd just mastered. I assumed she was going to roller blade in the big empty lot until I came out.

But when I got to the door of the office building she was right there next to me. I asked her what she was doing -- and reminded her I wouldn't be long but I didn't think this visit was going to be very pleasant.

She grabbed hold of the door handle right at the heoght of her forehead, smiled up at me with a determined look, and said," No way, Daddy. Just like Harry Potter, friends don't let friends meet dangers by themselves." She opened the door and in she went, Death Eaters and Dragons look out.

I'll confess to feeling relieved that the business man with whom I was going to meet wasn't in so I could just drop the papers and leave. I hope I'll never forget, though, the thrill of adventure my daughter and I felt together that afternoon following in Harry, Ron, and Hermione's footsteps. I suspect that she may not remember the incident but that the lasting influence of the heroic , loving, and relatively selfless, even sacrificial morality of the Hogwarts Adventures won't leave Sophia, her siblings, or her age peers in the Harry Potter generation.

And, for that, we all owe Ms. Rowling our gratitude at least as much as do for the thrilling narative line and more profound aspects of her books. In identifying with the heroes and heroines of Hogwarts, we become better people, capable, almost eager to do the right thing even if it is hard. In the week that Deathly Hallows comes out in paperback and Half-Blood Prince's movie is released, Here is my 'thank you' to Ms. Rowling for the fun and for making the hard, right thing seem to my children the best option, perhaps the default choice.

Message Edited by PaulH on 07-09-2009 08:21 AM