Harry Potter - How it changed my life

[Sinead Simpkins]

I got into Harry Potter when I was in year one (so roughly when I was 6 going on 7) and I saw the first movie on the big screen. It made me fell in love with the whole fantasy things (I think the whole Harry Potter thing made me have a big imagination or so called 'horror' by my mum who thinks that my imagination should be smaller not bigger like it is now). I kept watching the films and still I really enjoy it but Í still haven't started reading the books. Until the Spring of 2005 where I got book four (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and started reading it. I read the whole book in six weeks (still my record for reading through a 400+ novel) and I enjoyed it.

I haven't read the whole series in order (and it gets quite confusing when I have to list in which order it goes because I stop reading one book to go to one of the earlier ones). So I try and tell you, my readers (hopefully I have readers) in which order I read the series (before I go on exactly HOW Harry Potter has changed my life):

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
2. Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
4. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix (I stoped reading it then returned to reading it)
6. Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone
7. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Okay, now that's out of the way. How did Harry Potter changed a 15 going on 16 girl from the dense bushes of the Blue Mountains, Australia? Well, simple. I didn't want to or could not be confident reading out to my dad every night before I went to sleep. It was a ritual whenever dad was home to read to me (we read lots of books, mainly the Hazel Green series by Odo Heirsch and Pippi Longstockings) before I went off to sleep. After I was about 10, I really want to be more independent with my reading (and try and be able to read series confidently without my dad's help) and I knew that I liked the Harry Potter movies quite a lot and decided to read the series. It was the first series that I read independently and it led me on to other books such as The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares and Anne Frank's Diary.

I owe to J.K Rowling because without her (it is REALLY hard to write a series in this generation who is more into music, being plastic and video games) I probably won't have much literacy skills. I use to have to go to Speech Therapy and by reading the Harry Potter series, it helped me to become more literate and helped my speech a lot. Kudos to you J.K.R!

[Mosman Library]

Great post! You have at least 1 reader ; )