A Very Harry Potter Day

[Ebony Elizabeth]

No: HPFGUIDX 604

Are there any veteran middle school teachers on this list?  If so, 
please e-mail me.  I am but a novice <g>, yet I have never seen 
anything quite like *this*.  The lunchtime conversations with my 
summer school students should have been a warning to "take
cover".  

Forget Pokemon.  Forget Digimon.  Today half the kids—no, make
that more than half of the kids in our middle school division (grades 
five through eight, ages nine through fourteen if you're not in
the States)—were carrying around one of the four HP books.

Many of my former fifth grade students have come to visit over the 
past two days.  I've heard *dozens* of exuberant summaries of
GoF.  I tried to keep a smug smile from my face—some of the very
ones telling me about Krum's chances of surviving the next book
had whined the loudest before cracking open SS for fifth grade 
Language Arts!  

Perhaps the best of all is that so far I've received reports from
four former "parents" that their reluctant readers continued
to read all summer.  *Yes!*  I pray Borders (the best store in the 
world!) becomes the Next Hot Stock.

As for my new fifth graders (over 100 of them!), about a third of 
them haven't gotten to HP yet.  Hardly any of these nine and ten
year olds have read GoF, yet they are a *very* well-read bunch 
compared to last year's group.  (Score one for the "This is Not
Just a Children's Series, Stupid" camp.) 

The ones who have read the first three books have caught all of the 
sly Potterisms I've tried to slip by them thus far...
"McGonagall" and "Golden Snitch" caught their
attention even though I 
used them in non-HP context.

This is getting long... more in my next post...

Ebony AKA AngieJ