The Potter Generation

This is to discuss The Potter Generation (http://www.mugglenet.com/editorials/editorials/edit-herin01.shtml) by Erin H.

Great Editorial. Really good stuff that I could relate too. I've realized that I've been immersed with Harry Potter since Third Grade. It's really been a part of my life. Thanks for writing it.

That quote is my favorite from the entire series. Brings a tear my eye.

Nicely written. I'm a bit older (discovered HP in college, so that dates me a bit), so I can't directly relate to coming of age with the characters. This editorial captured much of what I've been thinking about how the books were structured. An interesting experience is reading HBP followed immediately by SS / PS (I did this recently) and it's remarkable how much the characters have grown.

Wonderful editorial!! I agree with everything you said. I first discovered Harry when I was in fourth grade, although Prisoner of Azkaban was out by then. I truly feel as if I have grown up along side Harry. The release of Deathly Hallows will hold a special place in my heart, because for the first time, I will be the same age as Harry is in the book.

It's so bloody true. I've never been more than a year and a half away from Harry in age as I've read all the books, and every one resonates with me as it comments on the stage I'm at in life. It astounds me now to look at the well-intentioned innocence of Harry in PS and CoS, knowing that I felt the same way about many things in life. It's also why OotP has always been my favorite book. Harry and I were the same age throughout it, and I completely understood why he was always so angry and yelling; he's dealing with first crushes, pressure in school, he's worried about the people he loves... who wouldn't scream once in a while?? Now, of course, I look back on it and see what people mean by CAPSLOCK!Harry, which gives me some insight into how people must have seen me when I was fifteen. It's all brilliant.

The Harry Potter Generation really is in a unique position. No other readers will ever be able to experience the books the way we did. I was eleven when I read about eleven-year-old Harry; I was fifteen when I read about fifteen-year-old Harry, and so on... It's such a privilege.

Good one.

OMT

Absolutely FABULOUS editorial! :tu: I was older when I first read it, I started reading SS/PS at around 20, one of my dear friends lent me her copy and was immediately hooked! I'm now starting the re-read of the books for millionth time I'm sure, and it's amazing to go back again and see how they've grown. Funny, if Harry were an actual person we would be the same age since I was twelve when it came out in 1992, so I also feel a certain kinship with him. I also share the dark wild hair, (though mine is curly) and also was a lot like Hermione and a little goofy like Ron, so I think that everyone can relate to at least one if not all of the characters. GREAT JOB!!! Keep up the good work!:love:

Very good!

Great editorial! I was eleven when I picked up the first book, and will be eighteen at the last. I can't pretend I didn't almost quiltily check for my letter when I started out!

Amazing... almost tear jerking... exactly how I feel... this is very oppropriate for the coming of the end

Lovely Erin, beautiful. I feel envious of you young things because this whole experience has been so extra special for you.

I completely agree. I, too, found Harry as an eight year-old, but GoF had already been released at that time, so I've always been a few years behind Harry. However, I don't think that makes my experience with HP any less meaningful in terms of learning how to deal with life. One of the things I love most about the series is how real and accessible the characters are - their problems are more or less the problems everyone must go through during the process of growing up. Maybe I don't regularly apply the lessons I've learned from HP on a daily basis, but reading about these kids becoming adults has provided reassurance that what I am going through is both normal and bearable, and I'm not alone.

Oh man ... I dont want it to end :( This has been such a huge part of our lives. Thank you for this editorial - it expressed my thoughts and feelings exactly. The line that was quoted, "I am not worried, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. "I am with you." Probably my favourite quote of the entire series, especially since Dumbledore had said the opposite "You're with me" at the beginning of HBP symbolising how much Harry grew as a person in the one book.

Aww that's so sweet. :) I have been reading HP since it came out when I was 11; and I was the same age as Harry. I've been addicted ever since, and I'll be at the end of my teenager-hood by the time deathly hallows comes out. I've had the books as a part of my life the whole time I was a teenager, and even longer.

very inspiring. i was in third grade when i started reading, although i was only in middle school during ootp and a freshman during hbp, so i'll still be in high school for dh, but i'll be able to go to my first midnight release (hopefully)!!!!

Fabulous editorial! Thank you for writing it, Erin. I'm a few years older than you, and it's so touching to learn what it's like from the inside. And I'm awed that Jo can portray so much personality growth so accurately.

Good work, Erin. All my best

I'm 23 and when I started reading HP, I was hiding it from the others of my age :) because in France, the Pottermania started after the 3rd or 4th books I think. I loved reading it, and it made me love english (I read them in english). So, my english skills improved with Harry :) That's what I loved with those books, and now, i'm learning spanish with them !
But I disagree when you say his last protector died : he still have lots. First, Hermione and Ron, then, Hagrid, and all the people from the Order... Also the House elves, don't forget Dobby :) hahaha...
Harry Potter was a great moment of Joy in my life, and I will be sad to finish the book, even with an happy end. I also loved those years of tremendous speculations on the internet and with my family, and with people I don't know in the trains, or anywhere... that's how I met a few people !!!
Will it be like "emerging slowly from a dream", or "go back to sleep" to you all?? ;)

i was actually 11 when i started harry potter, and was 17 when half-blood prince came out. ironically, i never read the book while i was the same age as harry (i read book2 first, and then book1 when i turned 12), but our ages were always only 1-3 yrs apart at most. i never realized it, but you are right. growing up, going through my teens, made it more fun and even easier with harry and his friends by my side:)

Great editorial.. I could totally relate to what u said.. I was 10yrs old when I read the first book and the final book is going to come out a week after I turn 17.. In a sense, I grew up with Harry too.. [:D]

I totally agree about the most important quote. It's amazing! :)

What a wonderful editorial. Someone should send a copy to Laura Mallory and then maybe she would understand how great these books are and just maybe she would actually pick them up and read them.

As a mother of a high school senior, I find your editorial very moving. So moving in fact that I'm sitting here with streams of mascara streaming down my face ( I can't find my tissues). I've watched my son (who happens to be the same age as Dan Radcliffe) grown up with Harry Potter and I've watched him go throught the transitions of young life exactly as you have described it (accurately I may add). He stands on the threshold of manhood too and I hope that he and Harry make wise decisions, live life fully and always keep their friends close by.

I wish, as a mother, that Jo would continue sharing Harry's life with us after Deathly Hallows, because it'll be just as hard to let him go as it'll be to let my son go.

On a cheerful note...at least we'll know that Harry won't have to return to the Dursley's to do his laundry.

Best wishes Erin...keep writing!

Indeed:)
I got hooked up on Harry when GoF was just released... and I will turn 17 this August, which makes me around the same age Harry is then... it's great:) I really grew up with him... and I'll be thankful to Jo forever for that:)

I know exactly what you mean. I met Harry when I was 10, and connected with him immediately because I related, for I was away from home, and my parents for the first time at sleep away camp. Since then I have somehow managed to be his age throughout most of the book releases, and when Harry 'graduates' (I know he's not going back to Hogwarts, but it would be his final year there) at the end of Deathly Hallows, it will come just over a month after my own graduation.

I was an adult when Harry Potter came out, but as much as I love the books, I have often imagined how amazing it would have felt to grow up with them. Every release I try to take my either my niece and nephew or a friend's child to the bookstore party here, because I know (and they don't yet and may not for years to come) how unique and special this phenomenon has been. Each time a book is released and the reading marathons start, I think, "This will only happen two more times," "This will only happen one more time." It must be wonderful to have grown up with these characters as role models (and anti-role models!).

That is my favourite line in the whole series. I remember the first time I read it and I was like - woah.

wow, you are so right Erin, I completely agree with you and I am so glad to be part of the 'Potter Generation'! Harry Potter has been such a great part of my life for about 7 years now. Even though everything around me was changing constantly, I moved from place to place and changed schools and friends, Harry Potter's always been there for me. I cannot imagine growing up without him!

I've also lost count of the number of occasions when I remembered the same situation I was experiencing happening to Harry or the others at some point in the books. Sometimes it just brings a smile to my lips but at times the fact that I can relate to someone really helps me, since I never had any really intimate friends to which I could completely confide.

And I agree about dumbledore's line, it always brings me close to tears when I read it!

Hi everyone!

This is Erin H. I am so grateful for all your positive reactions to my editorial. I was so stunned when it was accepted by Mugglenet- I’ve been reading editorials for such a long time and never though that something I had written would actually get posted. It’s such an amazing feeling!

Amy, who posted my editorial, recommended that I check out the COS forums, and I’m so glad I did. I was so touched to read what you all had to say abut “The Potter Generation”. Right now, I’m pretty much shaking as I’m typing this. The whole waiting process for the Harry Potter series is unique just to fans right now, and to be the same age as the main characters through their coming-of-age tale is even more special- I completely agree with Rebecca Hudson, it’s a privilege.

To respond to a couple of particular posts…Emmamoine, hilere, AliceFO, witch007, and anyone else who mentioned this, the quote from Dumbledore is my favorite too. I definitely remember being frozen on that line for about 5 minutes when I first read it. It’s so absolutely touching…. sfgilgalad, I’m doing the Spanish thing too. It makes reading Spanish so much easier when I have the story basically memorized!...CooksMom, I am considering your post one of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten. Thank you so much!...Gottriplets, oh my goodness, thank you for your beautiful response. Your reaction remind me of my mom, and I admire her a lot. It was really nice to hear a parent’s thoughts. Thank you!

Again, thank you so much to everyone who read the editorial and who has given such positive feedback and encouragement. Really, I can’t even begin to tell you how elated I am!

Erin H/ orchideous29

Someone should send a copy of this editorial thru J.K. Rowlings publishers so that she can read it. I'm sure that she hears how her books have touched many lives, but this editorial does a very good job of showing how it has at least affected one person's life.

I think that your editorial really shows why Harry Potter is so loved by people of all ages. It does show Harry in very reaslistic situations that reflect life's stages as very many people experienced them growing up. But I would hate to think that there are no book-related influences in childrens' lives today other than Harry. There are many other good books with a lot of good life lessons and stories we can all relate to, many of which are described in Mugglenet's Book Trolley.
Having said that Im very glad to have this serialized book in my life. I would hate to have had all seven books lying in a row on my library shelf for me to read at any time. It has been wonderful to wonder over a period of YEARS what happens next. What a treat for all who live to see such days!

this is so true! myself, i started reading when I was 14, but i went pretty much through the same process!

I really could relate to this editorial. I was nine when I picked up the HP books (by then, the first three were out; the third had just been out for about a week), so I was slightly younger than Harry when I started reading, and a little more than three years younger when GoF came out. It was very nice, though, to read HBP as an almost sixteen-year-old (my birthday is in August), and I like the fact that I will still be seventeen when DH comes out. Many of Harry's teenage trials run parallel to what I see every day, and it was great growing up with the Trio and the others.

But I would hate to think that there are no book-related influences in childrens' lives today other than Harry. There are many other good books with a lot of good life lessons and stories we can all relate to, many of which are described in Mugglenet's Book Trolley.

Oh, definitely! Many of the authors in the Book Trolley have given us strong, young protagonists- C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Lois Lowry, and Philip Pullman are some of my favorites. Their characters are all wonderful as well- I think I just have a particular soft spot when it comes to Harry.

Great editorial Erin.

I was extremely ancient when the first Harry Potter book came out, (and I am even more ancient now!) but became a huge fan of JKR on the spot. I have watched Harry grow, and develop, and emerge as a young man able to stand on his own for his next journey. I too, am counting the days till we find out how his story will end.

Keep writing!

I first picked up Harry Potter when I was 11 and when Harry Ron and Hermione were 11. Now when DH will be released I'll be 17 just like Harry Ron and Hermione, and about to turn 18. While they may not return to Hogwarts, I will also be in my final year at high school. It's been such a journey for me to have Harry in my life. I see so many things that apply in Harry's life that apply in mine. School + exams, relationships with peers and adults, maturing along with Harry, going through the stages when I wasn't so pleased with my life etc. All just like Harry. There are so many parallels in the books with my life. One example that I love is how on Valentine's Day we get delivered roses and letters at school, just like with Ginny's poem/song to Harry. I thought that was a cute parallel. Yet we obviously haven't been identical. I sometimes really crave for Harry's world, such as the fact he has such close friendships with Ron and Hermione, a level of friendship I don't believe I have with my friends. And I definitely agree with this:

Maybe I don't regularly apply the lessons I've learned from HP on a daily basis.

I sometimes wish that the things we learn at school would be directly applicable in our everydays lives.

Of course that's not to say I'd want to have Harry's burden of the prophecy and the loss of his parents so young. (obviously)

This is why it's going to be so painful when Harry Potter ends. It feels like yesterday I was in Year 6, all hyped up because I was going to big school. I can't believe time goes so fast.

Great editorial *wobbly smile*

Definitely captured what I've been feeling. I am a member of the Potter generation, and have thought so before, though without putting it into words the way you did. I read the first book when I was 11 and will read the final book this summer at 20. Talk about growing up with Harry!

I'm a bit late but this was sweet. I'm like you, I grew up with Harry Potter. I started reading it when I was 10 and I will be 18 when book 7 comes out. I'm only 6 months older than Dan Radcliffe too.

I am considerably older than most who have posted here, but I feel compelled to add my congradulations on a beautiful editorial. When reading this series I saw my children at different stages of their lives and it brought back both fond and some not so fond memories of happiness, love, and frustation faced by them. In a time when growing up comes all to fast, it is helpful even for a mom to have a handbook on what our children are facing .

Great editorial! I feel like part of the Potter generation too although I'm the same age as Harry's parents. I would have graduated from Hogwarts in 1977 which is around the year Lilly and James and the gang would have been there. So even though I'm older I feel included. Also my oldest daughter is Harry's age and we've read the stories out loud as a family with every new publication. Our whole family, really, feels like part of Harry's story. Isn't it wonderful to be alive just now and be part of the excitement? We are all so lucky. Thank you JKR!

This editorial summed up my life. I wanted to cry. I don't want Harry Potter to end! *SOBS*

I feel like I could have written this editorial - it is me all over. I could relate to every word you said; I too found the first and second Potter books just after CoS was released, aged eight, and I've been of a relatively similar age to Harry as the books were released, especially the last few - in fact DH is released just over a month before my 17th birthday, which I find awesome.

Thanks for this great editorial - it's nice to see that young people feel the same as me and are spreading those feelings out :)

I fell in love with Harry when I was nine years old, as an unexpected birthday gift. I quickly devoured the books, as my mother would say, and only a week or so later, I recieved book three, my favorite to this day, and I spent half an afternoon reading it in my great-aunt's parlor... her brother had no idea I was there, I was so quiet!

But most importantly... Harry was there for me when it seemed no one else was. He was there when I moved to another country, he was there school became so stressful I had to be pulled out and homeschooled...

I turn seventeen this year, and as I've said so many times over the years, "When the seventh Harry Potter book comes out, my childhood will be over." I guess it's good, I suppose... and I'm proud to be a part of the Potter Generation. As my dad has jokingly said, any future offspring of mine will complain to their friends "that mommy made us sit for two hours just to watch some old movie!"

I totally agree with this. These books have always been there for me. Of course, I haven't always been the biggest fan. I was thinking about this eariler today though, trying to remember when I first met Harry.

The book was released in 1997, which was my Kindergarten year. One of the most vivid memories that I have from being a 6 year old, is laying on the floor of my living room, doing a puzzle, while my mom read a book to my brother, who was about 8 at the time, about a man named Vernon, having a very strange day, with owls and cloaks, and a person named Harry. Yep, the first chapter of SS. I can't remember all that well, but I'm pretty sure that from then on whenever my mom would read it to my brother, I would listen too, and I do remember that the first few times I read the book, the last chapter scared me to no end. The idea of a man with two faces was not one I liked. I also remember that GOF was the first one I read on my own, and that I got very far ahead of my mom and brother, and had to wait until my mom caught up to me to read the graveyard scene, since it too scared me very much. But by the time HBP came out, I wasn't as huge a fan anymore, and it took me a long time before something inspired me to read it, and after I did, I became hooked more than ever before. This was because I was starting high school, and, well, I felt like Harry was there with me, starting Hogwarts, as I re-read SS. Then came finals, and Harry was preparing for OWLs, at the same time. And what's more, he was 15, the same age as me, so I could relate to him so much.

It makes me sad though, that the book is coming out so soon, relatively speaking, since I only recently found mugglenet, and mugglecast, and all this. But even so, it'll be here after DH comes, and I'm so thankful for that. Yeah, I'm definately part of the Potter Generation. I was just looking at some old emails where I threatened to send my friend a Howler email (if only it existed;) ) if she didn't write me back soon, and another where this same friend wondered if these 10 years will be looked upon as the time when JKR ruled the world through Harry Potter. Maybe not for everyone, but it will certianly be that way for me.

This was a great editorial I loved growing up with Harry Potter; and I am going to be very sad when it is over! HBP even came out when I was starting to get into relationships and big responsiblities just like Harry (thought I think his are a bit larger.)

I grew up with him too.
It feels like my childhood is ending on July 21, 2007.

Really good editorial, too true... It's exactly the same for me. I have just begun a parent-less life, where I have to stand on my own feet.
The harry potter series has accompanied me during my youth. I wished it could all my life, but, unfortunately, the end of the adventures is coming nearer and nearer... sniff...

I am so with this. I'm totally a member of the 'Potter generation'...I was the exact same age as Harry when HBP came out. It's going to be older than him when the last one comes out, that's never happened for me before!

Awesome read, I started reading Harry in the fourth grade. Since then to this present day I have only read a handful of other books and have re-read each Harry Potter book around 15 - 20 times.

I don't really know what I'll do when its all over, I know I'll be really sad because like this editorial says, Harry Potter has been a very large and influential thing during my childhood.

Very, very nice editorial. After reading your take on the HP series as a young person, I am even more assured that the novels have been a hugely positive experience for my 13 and 10 y.o. daughters.
For me as a 41 y.o. dad, the books have been something wonderful that I can share with them and a chance to invite something magical and carefree back into my own life.

That was so fabulous! I was 9 when i started reading, just after azkaban came out, and (i bet this sounds so sad!) i truly was dissapointed when i didn't get a letter during the summer i turned 11! This is so great, i absolulty love english and reading, and sometimes i wonder if it would be the same if the HP books i didn't exist...i highly doubt it! I owe JKR so much, that sounds so cheesy, but when i think about it is true! So, thankyou JK!