Why Don't You Tell Your Dreams To Me, Fantasy Will Set You Free

I'd read Harry Potter before, I can actually remember I was still working retail and I couldn't get all the books from the library so I actually downloaded some of them and read them at work when the store was quiet. It was a good series, perhaps a bit perplexing in how it started as a light kids book (in both nature and size) and ended up as dark adult books (and a lot more pages!). But nonetheless, an enchanting and whimsical story with a satisfying ending.

Speaking of ending... I didn't actually get to the books until they had all been out for quite some time, and I actually managed to remain in the dark about the ending. I remember before the last book came out, there was a lot of hype over whether or not Harry would die. Surprisingly, I never found out until I actually read it myself (don't worry, I won't drop any spoilers). I didn't know what to expect, and I was actually relatively pleased with how the ending was handled.

It worked out that I was going to Leadership Camp with my school, and the theme was, of course, Harry Potter. Knowing the books/movies of course wasn't required, but I imagined it would make the experience more fun, since clearly most of the kids knew the story very (very) well. Camp committee actually spent an entire weekend marathoning the movies and brainstorming for camp ideas.

So I followed their lead. I had almost $200 in earned Chapters gift cards (by doing online surveys) so I included a beautiful Harry Potter set in my order. Read the books. And then of course, Nick and I marathoned the movies over a weekend. I think the kids literally did all of them back to back to back (and obviously many scenes were slept through), but Nick and I spread it out over a whole long weekend so we could actually see the movies and still have time to get away from the TV for a little bit every now and then. We actually found a very cheap Blu-ray set at HMV; it didn't have anything fancy with it, just all the discs in one case, no fancy packaging or extra trinkets (I think that version is the size of a microwave and costs about $370... I saw that at HMV this Christmas; I wonder if a magic wand comes with it).

It was a good goal to have, and now I have a nice set of books and movies.