Pax, Amor, et Lepos in Iocando

Well, like so many, many Americans (and Brits and maybe even the Canadians) ) my family was at Barnes & Noble at midnight. Following a church activity, we didn't have time to deposit the kids anywhere, so at 10 o'clock my 4, 3, and 1 yr old come tromping into the Harry Potter party.

Now all my kids know about Harry is that mommy and daddy really like him, and they've seen the trailers for the movies on some of their videos. But they got caught up in all the excitement--the boys got lightning bolts painted on their foreheads, got their picture taken with a cardboard Harry, etc. And all the people dressed up in costumes! Too cool.

It was actually pretty neat--I wish we weren't carrying tired kids around so we could've really gotten into things, but there was a good atmosphere. Okay, I talked to one clerk who was very happy that, unlike The Goblet of Fire she was working on the cash register end--"the happy end"--wherein she was dealing with people who had books. Last time around she had to deal with those ninnies who didn't preorder, and therefore didn't get a book (how insane do you have to be to actually think for a nanosecond that you're going to get a book like this by just walking in from the street with hundreds of crazed fans already in the store?) Oh yeah, I was talking about the nice atmosphere.

All these kids (10-60 in age) assembled to get their hands on a book--to be excited about reading a book. I know, I know this keeps getting brought up as one of the positive things about the series, but it was very satisfying to see this much interest in something that didn't feature CGI.

Anyhow, we had fun--the kids got an interesting experience, and a nap in the van--

and we got the book