How often read - Rita Skeeter - Wizard kids

[katzefan at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 25705

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Vicky DeGroote <degroote at a...> 
wrote:

>  How many times HAS everyone read the books?  I've read 
>them all twice AND listened to all of them on tape at least once 
>(some twice).  I just got into the series in February, so i didn't 
>have to wait to move onto each as I finished them!  How many 
>times will I read them until #5 comes out-which is WHEN 
>exactly?  Anyone have suggestions for other reads besides 
>Narnia and Tolkien? ... I know that when I get my hands on #5 
>I'm going to try to pace myself.  1 chapter per day?  But, that 
>might only get me through a month!?  Yeah, right.  I'll blow 
>through it in a couple of fastfood filled days and be crying into 
>my pillow. :o(   
> Kitty  
> > 

I've lost track of how many times I've read them, because
I've re-read some more than others  - and I expect I'll be re-
reading them several times again until Book #5 comes out (and 
like Kitty, will zip through it in no time flat and go through the 
whole procedure again waiting for Book 6). To take up some of 
the slack, I've started reading the Lemony Snicket books. 
There's nothing particularly magical in them, but they definitely 
are *not* your basic everyday situations, and they have their own 
bizarre humour.  (Wait, maybe there is something - if not magical 
- inhuman in them: the characters of Count Olaf and his 
`associates', introduced to us in the first book. His house
is full of eyes - painted on walls and carved into doors - and he 
also has eyes tattooed on both ankles, which the children notice 
because he never wears socks.) 


>From:  blpurdom at y... [Re: Rita Skeeter] 

>Actually, I noticed that the first time she was introduced, and 
>then when things started popping up in the news that shouldn't 
>be, and Malfoy was obviously talking to something in his hand, I 
>thought it had to be Rita Skeeter in Animagus form.  BUT--I 
>expected her to then be a mosquito, not a beetle!  (I based this 
>on what JKR did with Lupin's name and Sirius' name).  Since 
>JKR isn't American, either, perhaps she thought this was a 
>generic American slang term for "bug."  So I still didn't take 
>notice of the beetle on the statue when Ron and Harry 
>overheard Hagrid talking to Madam Maxim, nor the 
>beetle Hermione said Viktor removed from her hair, because 
>the name led me to believe she should be a "skeeter!"

>--Barb

Maybe JKR made Rita a beetle because a `Skeeter' is a little 
more difficult to catch in your bare hands. The usual solution 
when you have one of these buzzing, whining, bloodsucking 
critters within arm's reach is to just splat it against the
nearest hard surface ....


>From:  caliburncy at y...
>--- In HPforGrownups at y..., cynthiaanncoe at h... wrote:
> My thought is that there may be various media for "seeing", but 
>there also ought to be an innate talent for it.  I would think that
>if  a wizard has that talent, it might show itself in spurts before 
>the wizard has formal training.

>Hmm.  I was going to say that the spurts of innate talent should 
>also show up only within those "mediums", shouldn't they?--but 
>then I thought about Hagrid's comment in PS/SS about whether 
>Harry had ever made anything happen he couldn't explain, as 
>though this is normal for wizard children.
>The pre-trained wizard children seem to make things happen 
>without any  "medium" (unless you count emotions) and it's 
>largely unfocused and partly subconcious.  The trained wizards 
>always seem to have some kind of medium to focus their 
>magic, though, like wands or incantations.

Something in these discussions kept nagging at me and finally it 
dawned - the little girl in Stephen King's `Firestarter'
(can't remember her name) who, as an infant and toddler, sets 
fire to things by accident when she's upset or angry. She later 
learns to channel her ability - partly in self-defence - which not 
only improves her aim but also greatly strengthens her basic 
ability to `flame' things.
Perhaps wizard children are the same: they have relatively small 
but uncontrolled powers when they are little, and between 
parents and school they learn to direct and control their powers.
And  Wizard parents would know how to cope with an infant 
doing 'odd' things, but Muggle parents would be baffled and 
probably more than slightly alarmed. If I had a small child who 
could make his/her bottle float in midair, or fetch a toy from the 
next room while lying in his/her crib, and then I got a letter from 
Hogwarts, I don't think I'd have quite as much trouble
believing it as I would if the child had done nothing out of the 
ordinary.