I sent this last year in conjunction with the release of the final Harry Potter book. It was also published at 13abc.com. I dusted it off because I can’t thank J.K. Rowling enough!

 Dear J. K Rowling,

This is a long overdue thank-you note. You’ve raised a fine young man in Harry Potter and, as my own children move from childhood to their teen years, I’m so grateful for what your boy Harry has given our family.

When your young Harry debuted, my kids were young as well, too young to read the books. But being an avid reader myself, I’d heard a lot of buzz about the young wizard, so I bought the first one. At that time my little children had only read picture books where each page was accompanied by a colorful cartoon illustration. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was a novel with only one tiny sketch per chapter. Plus the reading level was beyond my little nippers, so I resolved to read it aloud.

On that summer morning years ago, I wasn’t at all confident that the gnat-like attention span of my little children could hold. I wondered if they could pay attention while I read page after page of words, no pictures.

I sat on the kitchen stool, they at the table. I cracked open the big book and began. Sure there was some squirming at first, I threw out a “keep your hands to yourself,” and was forced to separate them to opposite ends of the table. It rendered the first page of out-loud novel reading daunting.

But it only took one page.

At the end of the first chapter I read the words “the boy who lived.” At that moment Harry Potter came alive in our house. So did something else. Harry’s world of wizards gave our Muggle family something more precious than a Firebolt broom. The books gave us family time together.

Your books are page-turners. And nothing can instill a lifelong passion for books like the first time you get hooked. The first time you can’t put it down or say to yourself just one more chapter, is an introduction into a life enriched by reading. For my kids, Harry Potter was that book. And even though my kids’ reading levels caught up to the books, we enjoyed reading them together so much, we kept reading them out loud.

We spent one summer trying to pronounce Hermoine, another summer was devoted to conjuring an accent for Dobby the House Elf, and finally last summer we read while bawling our eyes out as the series took a heartbreaking turn. We read in their rooms, at the kitchen table– I even stood in the shallow end of a pool while the kids sat on beach towels.

Of course we loved the movies as well, but it’s the books that I thank you for, Ms. Rowling. The books fired our imaginations and ignited creativity in my children’s brains. They knew what “their” Harry Potter looked like. They could imagine sitting in the common room and pondered a purchase at Fred and George’s joke shop long before the ideas lit up the big screen.

I am pretty sure they’ll never stand in line at a book store waiting for the clock to strike midnight again, nor will I, for any book. But we will one last time… to get the last Harry Potter.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows will likely see Harry grow up and away from Hogwarts, as my babies too, are on the cusp of growing up and away from our house. But this one last time we’re going to read out loud, around the pool, sprawled on the living room floor, and into the night.  And I’ll savor every word as the story unfolds, but even more I’ll savor the memories of our family gathered to read about the boy wizard.

So thank you J.K. Rowling for your boy and for giving my boys and me something magical to do together. 

Sincerely,

Rebecca Regnier

P.S. Please don’t kill Harry. There I said it.