We were latecomers to the Harry Potter series. Matthew and I didn't read them when they first came out. Alex was the first to venture into the wizarding world - he was introduced by his 4th grade teacher in April 2011 and plowed through all 4,167 pages by August.
He and Ben watched the movies as Alex finished each book, eventually skipping ahead of the books so that Matthew could take them to see the last movie in the theater.
Ben started reading the books the next year. At 9, he was a strong reader, but as he got to the later (and larger) books he asked me to read to him. And so I began reading the series starting in the middle of book 5. A slightly awkward place to pick up the storyline, but we began watching the movies again around that time so I had the basic framework of the history. After he and I finished the series together, I looped back around to the beginning and read the first books.
We began planning a fall trip to Orlando in the spring of 2013, and knew that we'd be visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal's Islands of Adventure. With that in mind, our summer bucket list included watching the series yet again.
There was a certain magic to seeing all the places we'd come to know through the books. It was certainly compounded by the fact that we'd been through those stories together so many times.
They got wands at Ollivander's. We ate at the Leaky Cauldren and had Butterbeer. We saw Hagrid's, and they had a wizard's duel on the streets of Hogsmeade. For an afternoon, they lived what they had read.
Sam recently asked me to start reading him the books. And has requested that we watch each movie as we finish the book. So our family begins yet another journey with the boy who lived.. and I don't think any of us mind at all.
