Harry Potter Giveaway: Question 1

It's only been two short years since we were waiting breathlessly for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows to be released.

On July 7, 2009, Book #7 will come out in paperback, and the entire series will finally be available in both hardcover and paperback.

To celebrate, I'm announcing my first ever book giveaway! What am I giving away? Harry Potter books, naturally.

5 winners will receive a prize pack of 3 Harry Potter books in paperback.

The three books are:

#5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

#6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

#7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I will be posting a few Harry Potter questions over the next few weeks. To enter the contest, answer the question in the comments. You may enter one time each per question asked. See the bottom of this post for today's question.

Official lingo: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a breathtaking finish to a remarkable series. The final chapter to Harry Potter’s adventures will be releases in paperback July 7th! It all comes down to this - a final face off between good and evil. You plan to pull out all the stops, but every time you solve one mystery, three more evolve. For more information and fun and games, check out Scholastic's Harry Potter website.
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Question:

If you could change any single event in Harry Potter books 2-7, what would it be?

(Sorry, you can't change an event from Book 1, because if you did, the series wouldn't exist.)

Contest rules :

Please leave an answer (and a valid e-mail address or link) in the comments to enter the contest.
You can leave a comment on any of my giveaway posts until the contest ends on July 7, 2009.
Winners will be chosen at random. If you don't leave me a way to contact you, your entry is invalid. U.S. Residents only, please.

Spoiler warning: If you haven't finished the series, don't read anything after this point. And definitely don't read the comments.

What would I change? It's mentioned several times that the prophecy could have applied to either Neville or Harry. There's a moment towards the end of the seventh book where Harry is preparing to meet his death and he tells Neville to kill the snake. When I read the book the first time, I believed that Harry was going to die. And I thought, what if this is what she intended all along? What if it's really going to be Neville who kills Voldemort in the end?

So, my change would be to have Neville finish off Voldemort. Harry would still live, but Neville would get all the glory.

What change would you make? I'd love to know.

Harry Potter Grammy nomination

Jim Dale has been nominated for a Grammy for the audio recording of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The category is Best Spoken Word Album for Children (category 78 of a very long list).

I'm thrilled because I'm a huge fan of Jim Dale, but also because I think the audio book is particularly wonderful. I have the Harry Potter audio books memorized (Really, I do. I'm not kidding. Quiz me.) Deathly Hallows kicks it up an extra notch, and even surpassed Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (which I thought was the best until I heard #7.)

There are numerous times in the 7th book where the characters drink Polyjuice potion and transform into other people. Jim Dale manages to keep all these occurrences straight (something that gets quite confusing in the print version) by creating new voices for the Polyjuiced characters. Even better, he adds a bit of the original character's voice. For example, if Hermione was impersonating Bellatrix... the voice would sound both like Bellatrix AND Hermione. It's very impressive and very helpful.

Congratulations, Jim!

Harry Potter: The Future

In Discussion Question Five I asked what you envision as the future of the Harry Potter cast of characters. I got asked what my opinion is (which I'm always happy to give =). I gave it some thought.... see below.

Really
BIG
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Actually
this
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I want to start with what J.K. Rowling said about the future of the major characters. (My source here is the MSNBC interview that was recorded the weekend the book was released.) Harry gets a job as an Auror, roots out the corruption in the Ministry and eventually becomes head of the Auror office. Ron assists Harry in the Auror office, although in the July 30th Bloomsbury webchat J.K. Rowling says that Ron helps run Weasley Wizards Wheezes. And Hermione is a lawyer working in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

What do I think?
I have a hard time believing that Harry works his way up to the head of the Auror office. Yes, I know that it's what he always wanted to do. And yes, the Ministry is now run by Kingsley Shacklebolt, so it's a different place than it was in Book 7. But still- I can't imagine Harry starting at the bottom on the career ladder. Here's why:

In that powerful moment when he stood with two wands in his hand and Voldemort lay defeated at his feet... Harry became a superstar. True, he had always been famous, but that was for something he didn't remember and had no active role in. Harry was very involved and very aware of finishing off Voldemort. And almost the entire wizarding world witnessed that crucial moment. I think that's the stuff legends are made of... and I just don't see Harry taking an entry level job after that. To me, it would be more realistic if he was immediately appointed to a more prominent role... or found a different career entirely separate from the Ministry. But I don't see him working his way up the ladder- because I think he's already at the top. This would be like J.K. Rowling submitting manuscripts and query letters to publishers for her next book- instead of being besieged with offers to publish anything she wants.

Also, I think there's an odd dichotomy about Harry actually becoming an Auror. He says in the fith book that it's what he really wants to do... but in the sixth book he's very dismissive about the profession. When he talks to Rufus Scrimgeour, Harry implies that having a guard of Aurors wouldn't be very helpful. I don't think he respects the position very much... he just doesn't have any other career plans.

And Ron... well, I just don't see him working in the Auror office. I see him being much more comfortable in a joke shop. Also, I think if Ron and George were business partners, George would finally respect Ron as an equal. For Ron to help run the family business after the devastating loss of Fred would be a very noble thing to do. Plus it would be a lot of fun... and I think Ron is more into fun than into battling dark wizards.

Hermione... yes, I could see her as a lawyer. She's a genius, and I think she would use the law to help people as much as possible. I could also see her as a professor... or possibly the Hogwarts headmistress when McGonagall retires.

I'm still thinking about the other characters.

Harry Potter 7: Why did I like the epilogue?

The epilogue has gotten a fairly mixed reaction. I'd love to hear what you think about it... see the new poll in the sidebar and Discussion Question #2.

Here's my thoughts about why I liked it. Scroll down past the spoiler space.

Spoiler
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Why did I like the epilogue?

• Everything came full circle. We saw Harry catching his first train to Hogwarts, we saw Harry’s parents doing it, and now we see Harry’s children having the same experience. Another wonderful full circle was the fact that Ginny’s daughter Lily couldn’t wait until it was her own turn to go to Hogwarts.
  
• That Harry has a family now, and children and in-laws… everything that was missing from his life when he was growing up. And that he’s providing that sense of family to Teddy Tonks who is growing up without his parents.
• Albus Severus Potter. Okay, it’s a rough name for any kid to have (although I’d argue that Scorpius Malfoy is even worse.) But it really showed me that Harry had forgiven Snape and finally understood him. After very memorably calling Snape a coward at the end of Book 6, Harry is now referring to him as “the bravest man I ever knew.” I think that shows a lot of maturity on Harry’s part.
  
• The nod that Draco gave Harry. It showed me that they weren’t best friends forever, but that Draco acknowledged that Harry had saved his life in the Room of Requirement and the outright hatred had vanished. I thought this moment was one of the most important things about the epilogue.
• That Ron was able to make a joke about Harry’s fame. Ron was finally able to accept it, and was no longer jealous of Harry.
  
• That Percy was talking about broomstick regulations. Even though Percy had that wonderful reconciliation moment earlier in the book, this comment showed me that Percy was still the same person- and had reverted to his roots. Does Percy’s presence on the platform mean that he has children going to Hogwarts too?
• The way Harry missed his son when the train left, and that he felt like it was a “little bereavement.” I loved seeing Harry as an adult… although this last chapter was like a little bereavement for me too. Because it was the end of the series.

Cheryl Klein (one of the Scholastic editors of the book) posted some great comments about the epilogue (and the rest of Book 7) on her blog Brooklyn Arden here and here.

The Plot That Must Not be Named

(This is the last spoiler free post).

So, as mentioned in the previous post, I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows but haven't yet said much about it yet. Here goes....

I have to say that I don't know where to start. There was just so much in the book... and there's so much to talk about. The only way I can think of to do this is to go chapter by chapter (lumping several chapters into each post so that it isn't too tedious to read.) I'll put the chapter numbers in the headline of each post- so you'll know what is safe to read if you haven't finished the book.

As a whole, I thought the book was extraordinary. The plot just wasn't guessable and I loved that. I experienced the whole range of emotions while reading... sadness, joy, shock, surprise. Mostly I was amazed at how many clues and double and triple meanings had been buried in the other books and what a complex tapestry the whole thing is. Congratulations to Jo Rowling for writing such a fantastic story and for keeping a secret for seventeen years. It was worth the wait.

Be warned.... from here on, the posts contain spoilers.

So I finished the book and....

Wow.



Wow.



Wow.