I got out of the habit of reading during the twenty years that being a mom was my primary concentration. Considering the voracious reader I was before that is really something. I did read the books that my children loved, however, and many of those books are well worth your time. These are my suggestions:…
I love allusions. They create a strong connection between reader and writer, not to mention reader and reader. We’ve read the same books! We’ve seen the same movie! We know the same myths and legends! Allusions are cultural unifiers. Overstating you say? Look at JK Rowling’s Harry Potter. How many of us know that McGonagall’s…
Why does a grown woman whose children outgrew Harry Potter 10 years ago like it enough to write a week’s worth of blogs about it? Lots of reasons. The first of which is: 1. I don’t want really want to grow up. 2. How cool would it be to find out you are a wizard? What…
Harry’s family life has been less than ideal. Up until he was 11, he thought his parents had been killed in a car wreck. He was told he was nothing but a burden to his aunt and uncle. And yet… Harry is not a beaten pup. In my work I have seen a few neglected…
When I had a Star Wars club at school, one of the things we talked about was Luke’s friends, and the role friends play in a hero’s journey. We talked about different kinds of love and that the Greeks had many words for love, instead of just one. I wanted them to understand that its ok…
Harry Potter week in honor of Halloween… Harry Potter’s story is a classic hero’s quest, and Harry is a classic hero. Here is my own adaptation of how Harry stacks up in Joseph Campbell’s monomyth: THE ORDINARY WORLD—Harry starts out as a person of little consequence, small, neglected, and pushed aside. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE—This really…
J.K. Rowling has very famously said that Harry Potter just walked into her life. That story, abbreviated, from jkrowling.com: I was travelling back to London on my own on a crowded train, and the idea for Harry Potter simply fell into my head…I did not have a functioning pen with me, but I do think…
