Jo has announced the title of the last book. I have set up a Squidoo lens focused on the new book.
My favorite feature is that you can vote on your favorite theories/essays/predictions. I believe this is a first.
So why are you still here? Go vote for your favorite theory. (I believe you need to sign up at Squidoo to participate. Don’t worry, it’s free and easy.)
Welcome to the worlds newest Harry Potter blog. . . at least for a few seconds.
I am mostly going to use this blog to support my Harry Potter related lenses at Squidoo. As I update lenses I will mention them here.
There may also be an occasional news item, essay, etc. that works better on a blog than on a lens.
Right now my blog is somewhat small so check out my central Harry Potter lens at The Giant Squid.
Wow!!!
I was the first to refer a news item to mugglenet.com. It can be read here. It involved something about a survey in Australia. . .
Anyway, I’ve always wondered if it was possible to beat the thousands of mugglenet readers to a news item. Well, it is! Although I think I got lucky. It was a news item from Australia and I was up late. And the mugglenet staff probably had to go to bed early to go to school in the morning. . .
Although I should have used my nickname. Everyone will think it was Damon, the mugglenet staffer, not me.
Oh well, maybe next time.
I took a quiz at the Leaky Cauldron and received a mark of D for Dreadful. At least it wasn’t a T…
If this works my score report is:
I need to figure out how to put it into the sidebar. (A year ago I knew how to do that. I guess I should post more often and I won’t forget stuff.)
dh
Update: It worked! By the way, I’m actually somewhat proud of my score. I don’t think it’s bad considering I didn’t study (or cheat) and I haven’t read the books in over a year. Melissa, from the leaky cauldron, got a 110.
Pope Benedict XVI allegedly disapproves of Harry Potter. In March, 2003 the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger wrote to Gabriele Kuby: “It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because these are subtle seductions which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly,”
Kuby had sent him a copy of her book Harry Potter – Good Or Evil. The above quote was part of his response. (More of his response might be at her website at www.Gabriele-Kuby.de. I’m not sure since it is all in German.)
However, Msgr. Peter Fleetwood suggested, as quoted on Vatican Radio, that the statement attributed to Ratzinger was made by an assistant.
He goes on to say that: “I remain firmly convinced that the Harry Potter novels are very well written. They are written on the classical plot of good versus evil in the standard way that the old myths were written. . . I can’t see that that’s a bad thing for children.”
He also advises parents: “If you’re in doubt, read the books yourselves, the first one, that’s the shortest one, and see what you think. Don’t simply rely on somebody else’s opinion, not even on my opinion.”
See more of Fleetwood’s comments at Catholic Insider. You can also subscribe to a podcast from father Roderick Vonhögen.
I had to post this because Fleetwood’s alternative Catholic view does not seem to be getting the publicity that the Pope’s two-year-old comments have.
It is also ironic that among the news sites that link to amazon, all of them link to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, but none of them seem to link to Harry Potter – Good or Evil. (It turns out to be a difficult book to find.)
The only news-conference for the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be given to 70 cub reporters between the ages of 8 and 16 on Sunday July 17.
These lucky young journalists will hear JK Rowling read from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince just after midnight on July 16 in the Great Hall at Edinburgh Castle. They will each be given a signed copy of the book and a day to read it before being able to ask Jo questions about it.
The reporters will be chosen in competitions being run by newspapers, bookshops and libraries from Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Click here to find out how to enter Bloomsbury Publishing’s competition.
I’m very jealous and wish I were 23 years younger.
I’m even more jealous of Emerson, creator of MuggleNet, and Melissa, creator of The Leaky Cauldron. They have been invited to Jo Rowling’s HOUSE to interview her about the book. They totally deserve the opportunity, they have been working on their excellent sites for a very long time. (Check out their sites to read their reactions upon receiving a phone call from Jo. I’m surprised they were able to keep breathing.)
I’m just a little jealous and wish I had started a Harry Potter blog five years ago. (Of course I hadn’t read any Harry Potter books yet and I only discovered blogging last December.)
Update: See an additional view on Rowling’s plans by a Writer in Progress.
I just posted this news at blogcritics.
