Harry Potter - book review

Swarms of people camped outside bookstores quite literally all over the world, awaiting the 7th Harry Potter book in languages from English to Chinese to braille, all reaching the simultaneous release date. A month ago when I revisited Thailand for two days, my friends suggested we go see "Harry Potter" (spoken with signature Thai accent which drops the final tone by about 2 octaves), and solo customers at Friendly's read them with their meals as the cooks and the ice-cream scoopers discussed the plot over the smell of burnt bacon and the syrupy stickiness of caramel and hot fudge.

Harry Potter is obviously well embedded into the global culture by now, but I've never read a book because I've always been skeptical of popular things...especially those that seem cultishly popular. But my attitude is changing, and I've just finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the first book.

The original title outside of the US is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Besides the title, I'm certain that every occurrence of the word "football" was changed to "soccer" (Which isn't unique to the Harry Potter series - I just read Gweilo as it is known in international versions, Golden Boy in the American; there's The Year China Discovered the World which in the US is called The Year China Discovered America).

Here's my favorite quote in the book, which I think echoes some Buddhist philosophy. (Do I even need to give a spoiler warning? This is the first Harry Potter Book, more likely than not, you've read it already!) ***Spoilers rest of blog entry***

'But that means [Nicolas Flamel] and his wife will die, won't they?'
'They have enough Elixir stored to set their affairs in order and then, yes, they will die.' Dumbledore smiled at the look of amazement on Harry's face.
'To one as young as you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but to Nicolas and Perenelle, it really is like going to bed after a very, very long day. After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things at are worst for them.' (297)

Like these deep philosophical lines, Harry Potter seems to have some lessons for adults too. But great ones for kids, and here are three great messages for kids:

(1) Kids really need space to experiment with what their learning, in practical and meaningful ways in which they care about. Dumbeldore does a great job setting up Harry in the book to protect the stone, even though in the process many rules are broken. And this is the second point. (2) Kids need to learn that rules set by authority are not perfect, and sometimes should be bent. The good, and right thing to do is not necessarily in line with society's rules. (3) And it follows that if rules are not necessarily good, authority is not necessarily good. I remember when I was a little kid, there was a couple continued Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers cartoon episodes, and there was a cop that was "the bad guy." When I told my brother this, he said "that can't be! He's a cop!" I felt my brother was onto something, and began to doubt that I'd remembered the episode right. Nonetheless, it's good to teach children that authority that is supposed to be good, is not always good.

More on Harry Potter as I read more!