Harry Potter

If you'll recall last summer, Olivia and I began reading with my sister and her kids in the hopes of forming a kids reading group.  Unfortunately, this excellent idea fizzled out once school and extracurricular activities began.  There just didn't seem enough time to keep things going and stay on pace.  Since I wasn't reading with Olivia, I decided to re-read The Hobbit for my own enjoyment because the movie was about to come out and I wanted a refresher before I saw it.  This was in late October that I started reading.  Olivia saw me pick up the book and asked me to read it out loud so that she could hear it.  I obliged thinking that she would be uninterested and give up within a few minutes.  This didn't happen.  She ended up sitting there and listening to the whole first chapter of The Hobbit.  The next night she asked for the second chapter, and we kept going like this until the book was finished.  I couldn't believe that she actually sat there and listened to the whole thing!  She loved the book and we went and saw the movie together at the theater.  This got me thinking that if she could handle The Hobbit then she could handle the best series of books ever penned.  I'm speaking, of course, of the Harry Potter books.  We decided to give it a go.  So, last December we began reading The Sorcerer's Stone.  This went well, and we continued with the next book in the series, and then the next, and so on.  After completing a book, we would watch the corresponding movie.  Olivia REALLY got into it.  She started dressing up as Hermione around the house and using "spells" to turn the lights.  She even got in trouble at recess on day because she was chasing other kids around the playground with her "wand" (a stick).   We finished the last book of the series on the night before school started back.  Olivia was practically jumping up and down as I read the final, climatic scene.  We have really enjoyed reading these books together.  After being in "Harry" mode for half a year now, I'm not sure what we are going to do next.  She is already asking if we can start back over and read them all again.  We'll probably move on to another book or set of books.  It's going to be hard to top Harry, though.