May 15th, 2011

Rose-coloured reviews *Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone* by J.K. Rowling

Well, it took me 14 years to read the most wildly loved children’s book of my generation. Partly because I just never got around to it, partly because I’m not a big fan of fantasy, partly because the Harry Potter zealots are so obnoxious. “You’ve never read Harry Potter?? But you love books!” one such specimen remarked. Humph.

I finally read it because someone I respect asked me to very gently, and I’m glad she did because J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone is truly charming, very funny, and sweet as pie.

On the front flap of the book, it says that HP&tPS won the 1997 Smarties Gold for 9 to 11 years, and this truly is a dream book for that set. The first 3.5 chapters are a hilarious sendup of awful British bourgeois family values, complete with privet hedges, vicious capitalist dad, smarmy mom and spoiled child. And a spider-filled cupboard under the stairs where they hide even the gentlest, most innocuous weirdness in their lives, orphaned cousin Harry Potter.

The horrible hinjinx of the Dursleys, including vicious assault on innocent loveable Harry, is cringy and funny simultaneously. As the book goes on, it becomes increasingly unclear whether the world the Dursleys inhabit is meant to be our own or not and, if it is, where is child services. But if I were 9, I wouldn’t care; I would only laugh gleefully over passages like this, where awful Dudley Dursley, brat and bully, cannot have his way:

“He’d screamed, whacked his father with his Smeltings stick, been sick on purpose, kicked his mother and thrown his tortoise through the greenhouse roof and still he did not have his room back.”

I think it’s the British-ism of “been sick on purpose” that makes this so funny, but I can’t really be sure–it’s just so hyperbolically *evil*. Someone told me that the American version of HP is rather bastardized to get out those Britishisms–I wonder if that version says “thrown up”? I have the Canadian, Raincoast edition, and it seems to have retain all the Britsy cadences (“to hospital,” “give it here”) as well as more obvious references like the West Ham football team (I don’t quite know what that is, but I can guess). Then again, having not read the original Brit edition, I don’t know what I’m missing.

Sorry for the digression–as I was saying, so Harry is a lonely and miserable orphan at his aunt and uncle’s until one day a letter arrives, admitting him to Hogwarts, a school for wizards and witches. The aunt and uncle try some very amusing stunts to prevent Harry from going, motivations on this being somewhat unclear as they purport to hate having him in their home.

In the end, Harry is spirited away by Hagrid, the loveable gameskeeper from Hogwarts. Hagrid also introduces Harry to his legacy–his parents were powerful and well-respected wizards, killed by an wizard gone back. That bad wizard, named Voldemort, tried to kill Harry too, when he was but a very tiny baby. He couldn’t; baby Harry was powerful enough to defeat this bad dude and save himself when his parents couldn’t. Even better, his triumph sent Volemort packing, and no one’s seen him since.

Harry Potter has become famous as a hero in the magic world, while the non-magic world (the world of “Muggles” in the language of the book) thought he was just a loser who had to sleep with the spiders. Moreover, his parents had wealth and social position, all of which he is now entitled to. Hagrid takes him shopping for all sorts of wonderful magical paraphenalia, and since Harry is finally in possession of his inheritance, he can afford whatever he likes.

The delights continue when he heads off to Hogwarts where his fame, and that of his parents, is well-known, and Harry is the immediate object of interest and admiration. He has never had friends before, but he picks up a few quite easily. He has never played the magic world’s premier sport, Quidditch, before but he is a natural and easily makes the team.

This is, without a doubt, the best possible fantasy for the 9-11 set, and much older besides. I loved all the descriptions of the beautiful old castle Harry moves into, the delicious foods they have the welcome banquet, the sporting equipment and spooky labs (not mentioned in the book: who pays the tuition here?) The dream of finding out that one is not as dull and ordinary as one appears is as old as time, and Rowling does it superbly. And the invention of Quidditch, and making the very complex descriptions perfectly clear in my mind is the act of a superlative creative force.

But…does it make me sound snobby to say this really is a book for children, and very young children at that? The first half of the book is entirely devoted to Harry’s life with the Dursley’s, his passage to and arrival at Hogswart’s. The second half is a series of adventures that lead Harry and his friends to discover a mystery at the school, and then to solving it.

The whole second half is one self-contained adventure after another, although in retrospect, HP and co usually discover a clue to the ongoing mystery in their seemingly unrelated scrapes and mistakes. They are thwarted by a very bad bully named Draco Malfoy, and annoyed then befriended by a know-it-all girl named Hermione Granger (all the names in this book are wonderful). There is no character development to speak of–good people are very very good, bad people are very very bad (often for no reason) and there’s no good saying anyone might reform because they won’t.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything for you to say that everything works out awesome in the end, Harry becomes more of a hero than ever, and the reader is very glad that this is so. Rowling crafts a simple, elegant tale. Even though there’s no real suspense (there’s six more books; I know no one dies now) I was very eager to keep reading and to find out what exactly happened.

And now that I know, I’m quite satisfied, but feel no particularly burning urge for book 2.

August 18th, 2010

Awesomeness

I thought I pulled a muscle in my neck, but it seems to be more or less all right now.

I thought there were no more TCBYs (This Country’s Best Yoghurt) outlets in Toronto outside of movie theatre snack counters (and the above website says same) but then I found one, on Yonge just North of Isabella, on the west side. It was very exciting (and as tasty as I remember. All the yoghurt tastes like coconut, which as far as I am concerned is a bonus!)

The TCBY (yes, this is a completely separate bullet point) is inside a coffeeshop (though clearly marked from the outside). While there, I saw a man order a large chocolate-vanilla swirl from the frozen-yoghurt side, and a carrot muffin from the coffee shop side. Passing him later, I saw that he had smashed up the muffin and PUT IT IN THE BOWL. It was like ad-hoc ice-cream and cake. Genius.

Amy’s helpful guide to Retail Etiquette for Dummies (even if you are not a dummy, this is still entertaining, in a squirmy, “People sure can be jerks” way).

This awesome video that Zach Wells posted of a toddler reciting a poem from memory, and doing a darn good job of it, too!

Also on the subject of small children, an acquaintance and her husband have gone overseas to adopt a baby, and yesterday they got her! I guess I shouldn’t share their personal blog URL, but I have to tell you, people experiencing that level of happiness is pretty mindblowing.

March 17th, 2009

Books that stay

Over on that other social site, Facebook, Kate S. tagged me to make a list of books I’ve read that will stay with me forever. Reading over the estimable Kate’s list, I saw a few were kids books, some of the same ones I loved back in the day…and now. And in that randomly thematic way the web works, Pickle Me This has been looking into kids books, too, the current ones as well as the nostalgic.

So I’m going to do my whole list of kids’ books. It’s not that there aren’t tonnes of books with long words and swears that I hold as dearly as the books below. But I really did take these books into my heart in a different way. When you’re wee, stories are the world, and whatever you absorb at that age becomes part of your planet.

More practically, I absorbed these books in a different way from later ones because, the first half-dozen or so times I was “absorbing,” I wasn’t reading. All of these were read to me, ad nauseum, until I was able to start rereading them for myself. I was by no means an early reader, which is somewhat embarrassing to admit when so many authors knew their vocations when they began reading in the toddler years. But at least I had people (parents, mainly, but I’d conscript whatever readers I could) willing to aid and abet my longing for stories.

Maybe this is all why I still love to attend readings–something about being told a story can only be good for me. I also have reached the point (finally!) where I love to *do* readings, telling the stories instead of hearing them. Of course, thanks to the books below, I also have really positive associations with goats, oranges, *A Pilgrim’s Progress,* and anything that comes in the mail…oh, those formative years.

Children’s Books That Stay with Me (in no order)

1) Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (and the sequels–*Little Men* and *Jo’s Boys*, but they weren’t as good).

2) Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White.

3) Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield.

4) Heidi by Joahanna Spyri (and the sequel, *Heidi Grows Up*, which wasn’t even written by Spyri and I didn’t like at all).

5) An Old-fashioned Girl by Louisa May Alcott.

6) Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery (and all the sequels, but the sequels had to be borrowed from the library, so I’ve read/heard them only once or twice, and don’t really remember too well what even happened in which book).

7) The Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wilder (the only series where I liked all the books equally–even the one written by the daughter, Rose, years later).

8) Stories for Children by Isaac Bashevis Singer.

9) Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott (yes, I had an Alcott thing growing up. But the sequel to *Eight Cousins* was still terrible, despite the wonderous title, *Rose in Bloom*).

10) My Little Kitten by Judy and Phoebe Dunn (one of these things is not like the others, I know! I was never much on picture books, but I was *obsessed* with this one–even just now seeing the cover on Amazon when I went to find the link filled me with delight. This is the only book on the list that I don’t occasionally reread, but really, maybe I should!)

11) Grimm’s Fairy Tales, red and green books, which I’m counting as one because I’m already over the limit.

On Bathurst Street at 2
RR