Two small girls dressed head to toe in black, hand-made wands in grasp, limbs twitching with anticipation. Two women sat behind a rickety card table, both with haggard expressions on their faces, likely due to the nearly two hundred children scaling every surface of the Barnes & Noble. My best friend, Allison, nearly jumped on top off one of the employees in an attempt to snatch the book out of her worn and tired hands. With eager anticipation the two of us went straight home and sat under a home-made blanket tent in complete silence, both of us fixed on the pages with huge, dilated pupils. Since my family did not have the money to pre-order a book for myself I silently read over her shoulder until the wee hours of the morning. But when my mother came home with a copy from Wal-Mart the next afternoon I nearly ripped it out of her hands and proceeded to tear it to shreds with my eyes until I had every new character, spell, and plot development nearly tattooed into my skull. When I was finished a few days later, now feeling accomplished and satisfied, I closed the book and traced my fingers over the gold embossed title; Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Growing up in New Jersey I was outside nearly every day, playing among the tall pine trees in the backyard and on the beaten tennis court behind my house. There was one particular tree that I always loved to climb. It was at least fifty feet tall and had my initials on the tree trunk, left in thick sap, and was a reminder of how the little things in life had such a big impact on me as a child. But in the second grade I left my three acres of land and moved 379 miles to the suburbs of Durham, North Carolina. I was left only to find that I no longer had endless amounts of land to roam, but instead I had a backyard of pine needles and actual neighbors.
On my eighth birthday a package arrived from my grandmother, which was torn open in a fury of bubble wrap and packing tape. I reached inside shoulder-deep, only to retrieve a book. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone had a pretty cover, but was fantasy, something I had never enjoyed. And though I resisted reading with every ounce of force I had, something led me to open the front cover, then read the first line, then the first chapter, and then the entire book. I read it again, and again, sucking in every last comma and exclamation point that J.K Rowling’s writing had to offer me. The words caressed my lonely shoulders and licked my ears. I had things in common with Harry, the main character. He grew up with nothing, poor and penniless like my family was when I was young in New Jersey. When Harry moved away to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry he was alone and knew absolutely no one, and I connected with his sense of confusion and the idea of being thrown into a new, unknown territory.
The things Harry Potter and I had in common were bold and obvious, but what made him stand out from my own self is what truly impacted my reading. Harry stood up for himself, something I never really learned to do while being bullied by my older sister as a child. He spoke his mind, no matter if an authority figure was around, or if no one was listening, and I, being shy and sheltered, envied him for that. As he grew up through the seven novels, I grew alongside him. Being a fictional character, he also had flaws, but grew from them. I studied his bravery and his outspoken features, learning that I, too, could be my own hero. I was taught by a simple name on a piece of paper that standing up for your beliefs and being brave even the darkest times are what truly create light in the world. Through Goblets of Fire and Deathly Hallows I transformed my world alongside Harry’s, breaking out from my shell and exploring my surrounding world to ultimately become the independent, mentally strong woman that I am today. It is the little things in life that truly impact me, and it only took a seven book series to do just that.
