My son Timothy, age 11, devoured a book this week, a magical mystery featuring a boy wizard written by Kaleb Nation, age 20. The book, Bran Hambric: The Fairfield Curse, was published just a few days ago, and, judging from sales and Timothy’s enthusiasm about the book, I suspect we have, if not the “next Harry Potter” (how many times have we heard that prediction?), perhaps another Artemis Fowl or Percy Jackson. Which would be very good news indeed.

The recommended age range for the book is 9-12 so I thought you might be interested in Timothy’s thoughts about the book which he wrote up this afternoon as a Hogwarts Professor guest post. He read all 464 pages of Bran Hambric in three days and has this to say: [Read more…]

The surest way for an American to display just how provincial and how ignorant he or she may be of English life is in saying profoundly silly about Cricket, the historical UK national pasttime. The Super Bowl or Olympic equivalent in Cricket ‘Test Match’ play, for example, is the England-Australia biennial match called ‘The Ashes’ — and it’s the rare American who knows about it, or the runs, bats, innings, and bowling of this game which have almost nothing to do with what we daft Yankees think they might. (Really, Quidditch is much more the magical equivalent of Cricket than to basketball or soccer in its relatively esoteric pitch dimensions and rules of play, no?)

To give you an idea of what a big deal The Ashes match play is, the actors who play Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy in the Warner Brothers films franchise derived from the books made an appearance at The Oval this year — and the show went on without the usual celebrity moment. I mean, this is bigger than Wimbledon.

The big play in this year’s Test, which, remarkably, England won, was a spectacular run-out by a legendary British All Round player who had announced in July this would be his last appearance for England. His name — and how he got his nickname — makes me think he is an Ashes stand-in for Marcus Flint, the Slytherin Chaser and Quidditch captain. [Read more…]

Ohio State University is offering a course on Harry Potter as Cultural Artifact and Literature. Fox News has included it in its online slideshow of ‘Oddball 101: The 11 Wackiest College Courses Being Taught on American Campuses Today.’

Really, though, at $814, the Harry Potter course is the cheapest offering among the wacky. Most of the others, from FemSex and Maple Syrup Making to Tree Climbing, Zombies, and Arguing with Judge Judy, come in at over $4,000. Potter Studies is definitely the way to go, especially if your Minor is in Economics.

Fact Check: I just searched for a Harry Potter course at OSU and found only one on ‘Narrative Theory’ that was taught last Spring and a 575 Level class on ‘Themes.’ Could Fox News be wrong? A first!

Travis Prinzi, author of Harry Potter and Imagination, James Thomas, author of Repotting Harry Potter, and Hogwarts Professor John Granger (that’s me), author of The Deathly Hallows Lectures, are joining Fandom’s most popular podCasting adventure, The Leaky Cauldron’s (TLC) ‘PotterCast,’ tomorrow night in their 203rd program.

See the program announcement on the TLC main page and tune in for the full explanation of what we Three Potterteers will be discussing on future shows– and how you can join that conversation.

For those of you coming to HogwartsProfessor.com (HogPro) for the first time after listening to the PotterCast or reading about the Potter Pundits at TLC, welcome! (More after the jump.) [Read more…]

Lev Grossman of Time Magazine interviewed me about all things Harrry and Bella last week and our Q&A was posted on the ‘Nerd World’ blog at Time.com this morning — and the article came with a link to Hogwarts Professor. If you are joining us for the first time after reading that online exchange, welcome! Please make yourself feel at home and join in any of the conversations on the various threads here.

I recommend — to get a feel for what the discussions are like at Hogwarts Professor — that you check out last week’s post on the real world Reformation heretics after whom Ms. Rowling named her Muggles (and her Seekers), a note on the allegorical meaning of Dumbledore in Half-Blood Prince (mostly lost in the film, alas), and a free-for-all discussion about whether literary alchemy translates to movie adaptations from text.

If you’re more interested in Twilight conversations, head on over to Forks High School Professor.com, the HogPro Twilight sister site. Either way, “Thanks for joining us!” and “See you tomorrow!”