Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against the Harry Potter franchise and their zainey adventures at Hogwash. I am just amazed how there can be such a collective consciousness about a fantasy character that has no particular demographic appeal. 63-year-old men are ordering Happy Meals just so they can get the Vaulting-Mort action figure to put on their dash. I read about a retirement community in Memphis that was having a Harry Potter look-a-like contest for its residents. I think there’s something mean about telling seniors “We have prizes for you. All you have to do is look 12.”

To me one of the most impressive things about the whole phenomenon, is that the woman who spawned Harry has been able to maintain this frenzy for 7 books, five films and 10 years. The Godfather movies couldn’t get past two!! And that’s Francis Ford Coppolla for goodness sake. I know there was a third, but it sucked.

Like many of you, reading these tales to my children first exposed me to the goblet, the stone and the Prisoner of Alcatraz . Then what happened for many was that mom and dad continued to read hours after the children were asleep. Since I was tucking the little ones in and heading to the radio station, I never fell under that spell. I do remember watching the Teletubbies with my oldest and remaining in front of the set for another 20 minutes after she had crawled out of the room. Good thing Jerry Falwell killed that machine, or I might just be at a convention right now in a furry purple outfit clutching my handbag. Yet, I digress.

Despite my good-natured teasing, it thrills me to see so many folks get behind a literary character. But what would things be like if everyone decided to go gaga over a different classic. I can’t see midnight sales events for “Catcher in the Rye” with people dressing as Holden Caufield or the hooker at the hotel. Or imagine the characters to show up at the late-night roll out of “Lady Chatterly’s lover”.

Even though you’re still likely to see more J.K. Rowling’s books tucked under people’s arms, then mullets at a hockey game, you still have the religious right screaming that Harry and his madcap antics are just a brochure promoting witchcraft. But I think that’s more about the sour grapes that they don’t own the Borders books where 5000 Harry Potter books are walking of the shelf per minute.

Just to see that there is a mass appeal amongst the children today about reading, warms my heart. These are the folks that are going to pick my rest home and the fact that the video game, Grand Theft Auto is in more homes then scrabble, has been quite disconcerting.

So, if nothing else, I’m glad to see that using ones imagination is popular again and that several Barnes and Noble employees got a little overtime pay.