Potter!

Reading Harry Potter has been an obsession with Rachel for about a year now.

 

When she started hearing way too many spoilers from other children, I decided to let her read the whole series (I had previously announced she would have to stop at #4). When she started (inadvertently, really) giving spoilers to Adam, we decided to read the whole series as our bedtime reading, for as long as it took. We started on December 1 with my sister reading the very first pages of Book 1. Since then we have made steady progress (and have watched some of the movies, too), and this week it finally happened: we came to the end of the 800-some page Book 5. 870 pages, to be precise.

Now, I hate to stop reading once Voldemort gets involved. We had about 100 pages left as Harry and the crew were arriving at the Ministry of Magic. I couldn't see a good place to stop coming up. So we decided to try a Potter Pizza Night: with all three family members able to read HP taking turns, a large pizza from Angelo's, and some patience with JK Rowling's extensive descriptions... could we finish the book in one evening?

We had some minor detours (namely, a fussy baby, and Ben getting delayed at a meeting an hour away). But we diligently began reading just after 5:00 pm. With one five minute break (to get a piece of pizza into the first dinner reader).... we finished at 7:58pm.

Now on to Book 6....this weekend or next, we'll have our finishing celebration for Book 5. Which means a special HP themed snack while we watch the movie. For Book 4 we had Gillyweed Burritos (not popular, although I loved them) and chocolate broomsticks (chocolate dipped pretzel rods, extremely popular). What to fix for #5.....