Harry Potter turns 30 tomorrow (and Ms. Rowling 45) and I wanted to ask you what you thought Harry’s best birthday was? I assume the great majority of readers and movie-goers will vote for his eleventh birthday because of the revelations in the House on the Rock and his day with Hagrid. That certainly makes sense because that b-day in many ways marks his re-birth and discovery of self.

But there are other birthdays in the book that are eventful and meaningful, even revealing of the story-ending because Ms. Rowling liked to point to the finale at the story-start and as often as not started with Harry’s birthday. Dobby, for example, appears on Harry’s LaborDay version of a birthday in Chamber and that book ends with Dobby’s re-birth and liberation.

What is your favorite Harry birthday, then, and please do share what plans you have to commemorate the natal anniversary of The Boy Who Lived!

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf answers a young person’s question about whether reading Harry Potter constitutes a sin that needs to be confessed. “Fr. Z’s” answer is a wishy-washy “no;” his dismissal of Potter as second rate reading and his defensive sop to his blog audience that he didn’t buy the books he read suggests even the overly-couched thumbs up for Harry comes at a price. Sure enough, the Harry Haters are on him in a minute and Catholic Potter-Philes are there soon after exchanging urls and sureties of just how wrong the other side is. [Read more…]