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When I first began reading the Harry Potter series, back in the summer of 2001, the only rule I’d set for myself was that I wanted to be sure to read each book prior to its corresponding movie release. I couldn’t easily be buying them all in hardcover, so I had waited ’til each one was released in paperback, that is UNTIL—I read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix! When I finished that book I knew that as soon as Book 6 was released my greedy, anxious little hands would be on that hardcover before it hit the shelves!

Many people have described Harry’s snappy, irritable behavior in “Phoenix” as “teenage angst.” Honestly, I’ve never seen it that way. I mean, really—after, at the end of his 5th year at Hogwarts, having witnessed Cedric Diggory die at the hands of Voldemort, then narrowly escaping death himself, to then be kept in the dark for most of the summer by everyone including his friends, he had good reason to feel more than resentful. Add to that an attack by two Continue reading →