by Mark Spriggs

Created on: September 10, 2009   Last Updated: September 12, 2009

Some books inspire, some books attract us with character, plot, drama or comedy, but there are rare ones that do all this and then grab you by the heart strings and make you care about the world you are dragged into, the people so convincingly written about on the page and the situations they find themselves. This is the impact of Harry Potter and the World of JK Rowling, a title that I'm sure could have or should be used at some point, on me.

My daughter received the first three books on the release of Prisoner of Azkaban and, already a voracious reader, she was hooked. We didn't see her for four days as they were devoured in minute and intricate detail and we received the benefit. To my mind, as a fan of Tolkein, Lewis, Brooks, Gemmell, Feist and the like, anything that could inspire such fervour in an eight year old must be worth taking note of, and with the tidal wave building the crash of Goblet of Fire could not be resisted and so I read the previous three books, chatting them over with her as she extol me with wonderful words such as Dumbledore, Gryfindor, Snape, Flitwick and Hagrid. Seventy two hours after it arrived my now nine year old little girl had finished a book of such gargantuan proportions I could not resist the literary temptation to dive in head first and with a very tired, but satisfied, child snuggled up on the sofa next to me, I began.

An unusual underworld of magic flickered before me before returning to the pseudo familiar world of the urban teen, what was this, where was the depth of magic that seemed to grab teens and tweens so readily? Suddenly owls, giants and the earth shattering phrase You're a wizard, Harry blasted across the page and changed the landscape forever. I was met with a world so utterly unusual, so captivating but so fantastically accessible that I wanted to live there, be there, and be involved with its characters and the goings on. Hogwarts was the place of safety, where life is learned and we followed on the range of characters on their journeys through to impending adulthood, seven precious years and we see the it in intricate detail, with all it challenges and joys.

So I love the books, anticipating each one as it arrived, taking my daughter to collect our copies of the last one in Oxford at midnight. Oxford, a centre of literature and a place that saw two or three thousand people come out into an area no more than a hundred and fifty metre square with six stores open to service the demand, staff all over the place advertising the shortness of their queues whilst dressed in wizard chic. It is the characters though that drag you in, I began to care about Harry, Ron getting together with Hermione, the Weasleys and even Neville. I felt like the fourth member of the group trailing along behind the trio hearing all their conversations their hopes and fears and joining in all the action. I was nervous for Harry with the first kiss with Cho, in ecstasy as he grasped the Tri-wizard trophy and watched through his eyes the tragic agony as Cedric is 'gunned' down.

JK Rowling is no Shakespeare, nor is she a Tolkein, she doesn't need to be, she is in a class apart, telling a simple, well developed story with finesse and style which not only releases the imagination to inhabit the tale but binds the reader to the whole epic. And to sum up I love Harry Potter because I love Harry Potter, and Hermione, and Ron, and Ginny, Neville, Luna, Fred and George, Tonks and Lupin, the list could never end.

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