Or at least it would be, if he were real.
In the Potter books, the boy wizard was born on the 31st of July 1980. As one website has it, the fact that July 31st is also author J.K. Rowling's birthday "does not seem like a coincidence."
I knew nothing of the Potter-verse when the first book in the series – "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," or the "Philosopher's Stone," as it was titled in the UK – was released in the U.S. in September 1998. We had just had our third child a month earlier, and well, my life centered much more on diapers and late-night feedings than it did on children's literature.
It was a few years later, when Elissa was in second grade, that Mr. Potter entered our lives. Elissa's teacher, Mrs. Kastelic, was going to read the first book to the class and Terry had some questions about it. She didn't know much about Harry Potter, so she decided to read the book herself.
And thus it began.
Terry was blown away by it. Our voracious young reader Elissa was, too.
And in time, so was I. I read all the books and listened to the audio versions a few times, enjoying the immense talents of the great narrator Jim Dale.
By the time the series was four or five books old, you could count on some portion of our family lining up at Barnes & Noble at midnight to get one of the first copies of any new Potter release. Once, my mother-in-law Judy even took the girls for one of these late-night Potter parties.
We watched the movies, of course, and to this day we still sometimes play a Harry Potter trivia board game when we're all together.
The depth of the narrative, the intricacies of the Potter universe, the growing pains of the young characters...it was all perfectly timed for our kids.
Whenever we visit The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Florida's Universal Studios, you better believe Elissa is there in full Hogwarts robes. She is as dedicated to her Potter fandom at 30 as she was at age 8.
So happy birthday, Harry. And thanks for being such an important part of our family for all these years.
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