Eric Randall, an editor and journalist whose work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, USA Today, and the like, has written a fun book that I know my family will be using on car trips for a long time. It’s called The Pottersaurus: 1,500 Words Harry Potter Readers Need to Know and what it is is a delightful collection of the “big words” in Joanne Rowling’s oversized books. Arranged alphabetically, each word has a definition and at least one citation from a Harry Potter novel. Here’s one example, chosen randomly:

Pirouette — A spin in place. Crabbe did a pirouette in midair at the Shrieking Shack after Harry, hidden by his Invisibility Cloak, threw a stick at his back. (PA, Ch. 14) Hermione did a graceful pirouette while practicing to apparate. (HBP, Ch. 22)

My children love this stuff. They’ve been immunized sufficiently that they flee from school work dressed up as a game but they love explaining words that their parents don’t think they’ll be able to define. Best is catching dad with a britishism, though… Who knew a “pouf” was a “footstool or couch with no back”? I thought they were throw cushions.

Even better, Mr. Randall has a Pottersaurus website where you can play Word Quidditch. Forgive me for confessing that I played it between classes one day, just to hear the cheering sound effect for a few minutes (I’m not getting much of that from my cadets at the end of the year).

Highly recommended for families and for parents needing a good cheer!

The most frequently requested article from the old Hogwarts Professor site after “Obviously Dumbledore is not Jesus” has been this piece on the scandalous use of the Pope by Canadian Harry Haters and Culture Warriors the day before Half-Blood Prince was released. I re-print it now in anticipation of similar shameful efforts in the third week of July this year. Harry Potter is a phenomenon those who style themselves latter-day Savonarolas almost certainly will not let pass without a volley and flourish.

“Pope Opposes Harry Potter”? Hardly.
Michael O’Brien and the Kuby Letters: Rita Skeeter covers the Vatican

A Time Line and Commentary on the Kuby Letters, supposedly written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), on the subject of the Harry Potter novels written by Joanne Rowling.

February, 2003:

The story begins at the press conference releasing the Pontifical Council on Culture and Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue’s of “Vatican statement on New Age Religions’ Jesus Christ: The Bearer of the Water of Life (A Christian Reflection on the “New Age”). [Read more…]

If you do, just click here. The link will take you to the Zossima Press web site shopping cart. I’ll autograph anything you order there that I’ve written. You betcha.

Shamelessly mercenary John