Why Harry Potter is important to us?

A collaboration with Beth aka http://www.harrypotterislife.blogspot.com.au/

Our lives before Harry Potter were dull and grey existences. Personally I did not have an active imagination and I did not like reading at all. I found reading boring, tedious and obsolete. Now I look back with incredulity that I could ever think of reading in such a profound way.  Before Beth and I had read Harry Potter our lives had not even a hint of imagination what so ever. So when we both read the first page, we were instantly transported into such a distant and amazing world; a world of adrenalin, apprehension, humour, and of course… magic.

A couple months shy of my 9th birthday my aunt let me borrow her copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. At that time it was a big deal, because she was very protective of her books. I was sceptical about it, because at the time I did not like reading at all. To my surprise I really enjoyed it. That was the first time of many that I experienced the exhilaration that comes with reading. It did take me a month to read it though. I was a shy child so I rarely talked and when I did I used a limited vocabulary. After reading Harry Potter my grades improved. I had a larger vocabulary, I could spell better and overall I received better results in all subjects, even maths. I tried so much more in class. I gained the courage to ask for help when I didn't understand, which was a very big thing for me to do. Hermione Granger was a great role model for me. I wanted to be so much like her that I went to the library every day. Prior to my Hermione Granger phase I didn't even know what a library was. I was elated when I got my own library card and could finally bring books home. My library card was my ticket to so many worlds; dystopian worlds, fantasy worlds, the rest of the world, a world of cooking and so much more. With that one library card I was exposed to so many new ideas and ways of thinking that I had never even dreamed of in my sheltered childhood.

Beth’s story is a little different from my own, she had always like reading and never hated it, but she hadn’t read a book that would have filled her life with magic. This is what Beth had to say when I asked her why Harry Potter is important to her. "I simply loved how J.K Rowling started out her first novel. She made you feel sorry for harry, as his parents had been murdered when he was an infant and then sent to his abusive family., he had no connection to the outside world, and even society. He was stuck in a little cupboard under the stairs for most of his life. This is where your heart melts for him.

But this all changed on his 11th birthday. When gamekeeper Hagrid storms through the Dursley’s door and helps harry, his life is changed forever. He is sent to Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. He makes many acquaintances but also precarious enemies in his later years. He goes through perilous challenges and faces treacherous creatures. Harry potter and the Deathly Hallows was an amazing ending to the Harry Potter series. There were many plot twists, and J.K Rowling kept everyone without a doubt, glued to the book until the very end. Severus Snape had turned out to love Harry and his family, one of the most captivating moments of the books I believe. He loved Lily Potter, and saved Harry from many perilous encounters.

The Dark Lord, Voldemort, had finally been stripped of immortality when his 8 Horcruxes had been destroyed, one of them unexpectedly being Harry Potter. The devastating battle of Hogwarts was one of the most heartbreaking moments as many students and teachers of Hogwarts had been murdered. It finally came to an end when Harry finished what Voldemort started. Friendship was one of the many scintillating message in the book. It was very realistic, unlike in most movies and books where there are no fights, quarrels and everything goes right. It’s not like that. Harry, Ron and Hermione got into fights, had their own opinions and tiny quarrels. It wouldn’t be the best experience, but in a way, it makes the bond even tighter. This is why I love the Harry Potter series so much. It’s a very powerful, beautiful and encouraging message to everyone.”The first Harry Potter book took me a month and the last one only took me a week! The Harry Potter obsessed period of my life is the foundation for who I am today. Since then I have read so many more books and have a list of favourite books because I get stressed out when people ask me what my favourite book is. As if I would only choose one! I’ve spent probably thousands of hours of my life just reading. There are probably millions of words in the English language probably more being made each year, with words like 'selfie', but I couldn’t possibly string together the words to describe how grateful I am for the positive impacts reading has made upon my life and how much I love it. Without reading I won’t be who I am today. I wouldn’t have a blog dedicated to reading. I wouldn’t have all my wonderful friends who I met through our shared love for reading. I wouldn’t have a bookshelf full of my favourite books. Now with the wisdom of my teens I’m only beginning to understand why reading is so important to me, it has changed my life for the better and I truly can’t imagine a world without reading.                                      

The first Harry Potter book took Kellie a month and the last one only took her a week! The Harry Potter obsessed period of our lives is the foundation for who we are today. Since then we have read so many more books and have a list of favourite books because we get stressed out when people ask me what my favourite book is. As if we would only choose one! We’ve spent probably spent thousands of hours of our lives just reading. There are probably millions of words in the English language probably more being made each year, with words like 'selfie', but we couldn’t possibly string together the words to describe how grateful we are for the positive impacts reading has made upon our lives and how much we love it. Without reading we won’t be who we are today. We wouldn’t have a blog dedicated to reading. We wouldn’t have all our wonderful friends who we met through our shared love for reading. We wouldn’t have a bookshelf full of our favourite books. Now with the wisdom of our teens we are only beginning to understand why reading is so important to us, it has changed our lives for the better and we couldn’t truly imagine a world without reading.      
Harry Potter helped us escape reality when we were feeling low. One night we were off to fight dragons and another night we were at Hogwarts learning how to make potions. We both strongly believe in the messages portrayed in Harry potter, which are friendship and love. Love is emphasized so much in the Harry Potter series. For example: The only reason Lord Voldemort couldn’t kill Harry was because he was protected by his mother’s love. It was stronger than Voldemort’s dark magic. It teaches us a lesson, it stays with us forever. J.K Rowling has made the most captivating and unbelievable book series in our generation. Her stories will live in us forever. Harry Potter had opened so many doors for us both. We had known each other since we were 4, but we wouldn’t be this close without Harry Potter, Harry Potter may not be the centre of our universe anymore, but we were deeply changed when we opened that first book. Harry Potter lives on in us. We are a part of the Harry Potter generation.

Zac and Mia by A.J Betts Review

-Contains Spoilers-
Comparing; The act of noting or recording the similarity or dissimilarity between an object or abstract entity, quality, or concept. I think it is no surprise that I like, maybe even love The Fault in Our Stars and naturally I compare every book I about cancer to TFiOS. I really shouldn’t do that, because every book has its own story and its own message so I really shouldn’t compare them to each other, but to me it’s a natural instinct to compare what is similar to each other. I also seem to forget that John Green isn’t the only author to ever write about cancer. As I probably already let on Zac and Mia is a book with cancer patients as the protagonists and since it’s a cancer book I compared it to the much beloved The Fault in Our Stars. Zac and Mia is a sweet story and more realistic than The Fault in Our Stars, but had scenes that had me skeptic. Please let me stress that this book should not be in comparison to The Fault in Our Stars, Zac and Mia carries its own, unique story about two teens living with cancer.

I felt that character development was almost perfect with Zac and Mia and they were such believable characters. Zac’s attitude is ‘okay, I have cancer. I can’t change that. I’m just going to accept it and go through therapy.’ While Mia is vain at the start of the novel and her attitude speaks volumes about her, ‘I hate cancer. I don’t want to lose my hair! What I have to lose my ankle?! Life is so unfair why this is happening during MY YEAR 12 FORMAL?!!’. I sort of understand where Mia is coming from. I won’t want to lose my hair or have cancer or have my formal spoiled, but I couldn’t help resenting her. Due to her sense of self-worth she doesn’t see how lucky she is. She has the best odds of surviving at of everyone in the ward. She has a mother who means well and her cancer is in her ankle so she could just cut it off. I felt that she was such a brat and drama queen about it.

Zac’s cancer is in his blood stream and bones, he can’t cut a limb off to get rid of his cancer, his cancer is everywhere. (He has leukemia) If by some cruel twist of fate I get cancer I think I would have been a mix of Zac and Mia, but would have acted more like Zac. Zac was mature about it and didn’t try to ignore his cancer and wasn’t vain. Zac was a very likable character and he had an easy going nature. In the end I started warming up to Mia and loved her relationship with her mother. When I finished the book I wasn’t sure if I liked Mia or not, but now that I have had more time to dull on it, I think I like Mia, but not as much as I like Zac and her mother. I think the mothers made the story more meaning. Zac’s mother is the perfect mother who is caring, supportive and overbearing. Mia’s mum mean’s well and does what she can to help and protect her daughter. Throughout the book I felt how much she cared about Mia and how much she loved her. I also was on her side when her daughter hated her for allowing the doctors to cut off her ankle to save her. The mothers off this book just made me like it so much more.

This is my own edit, that I made a while back.

The plot I felt was a little weak. The story started out strong, but went a little downhill. Mia running away felt too dramatic and her running into Zac felt too planned and not natural. The world is small, but not that small. Australia is a big country and I doubt that they would run into each other, but it was an important part of the story for them to run into each other after their treatment, but I wish it was done in a different way. Briefly, the plot seemed a little lacking to me; some background drama would've been preferred to make it more eventful. I forced myself to read through it sometimes, because it wasn’t very interesting at some parts. All in all, with minor flaws in the plot and characters, I found myself still loving the story overall. Compassionate and confronting are two words to describe this novel. While not perfect, Zac and Mia has a strong story filled with wit, humour and heart felt moments.

A.J Betts signature when i saw her at the Writers Festival.

The author of this novel is A.J Betts. Originally after reading the book I felt disappointed, because as mentioned before the plot seemed a bit lacking. On the 27th of August my school went to the Writers Festival week in Melbourne and we saw her talk for about half an hour. She was so humble, funny and down to Earth. I really wanted to talk about the book with her more in depth, but I got shy, but I was able to get a picture with her with my school book club. After hearing her talk I felt like I appreciated the book more. I now knew why she wrote it how it was. I now understood that to me it might have seemed downhill, but in reality it didn’t go downhill it went realistic. It went into a moment when everything was raw. Cancer was romanticised, it was shown in a realistic way, in all its fury and terror.  The character’s weren’t sick when it fit into the plot, they were consistently sick. Authors get to influence what a reader reads, but ultimately the reader gets to decide on how they interpret the story.  In the end, with this book I feel like the author got to decide what I read and how I ended up interpreted the story.

-The girl with her head in the clouds