Harry Potter

First let me say that I LOVED this book! I remember all the press surrounding these books when the series first came out. I never had the opportunity to read it before since the school I attended was very strict and forbid students from even bringing it to school (I had a friend who covered the cover of the book in a brown paper bag cover like a text book and read it during lunch!) In any case, as with the last book, I probably wouldn't have read it anyways because of its insane popularity and everyone's obsession with it (Somehow that turns me away from wanting to read those books). With all of that, I thought that Rowling did an excellent job in creating a new world that coexists with the real world. I guess Rowling probably had many of the same moments of grating cliches that Meyers had, but the beauty of Harry Potter is in the details. A new sport/past time with specific rules listed out; a three-headed creature protecting a strange mystical object; unicorns; flying broom sticks; magically growing hair; owls; secret train platforms. She has such an imagination! I would actually enjoy using this book in my classroom. It isn't a complicated text, but the story is multi-layered, the characters do develop as the story goes on (Harry's aunt and uncle are a bit flat, and so are many of the other characters, but it does get better). I think that it would be beneficial to use the text to help students start out a creative writing project. In a social studies class (and combined with the English class) during middle school, we were required to make up our own country with laws and hobbies and everything. We created a map using all the various parts we learned in social studies and then wrote a creative writing story about the people who lived there. Rowling's book could be a good starting point or example of how to do something like that.