Here is where we will discuss the latest and final Harry Potter opus. For those of you who have not yet read or finished the book, consider this your SPOILER WARNING and stay out of the comments until you’ve done so.

If, however, you read it, sound off below.

For the record: bought off the shelf at B&N; on Saturday evening at around 7:30. Finished late last night in a marathon reading frenzy after Val and the kids went to bed. I’ll put thoughts up in comments a little later, because I’m still rolling over the big parts of it in my mind, including that epilogue/last chapter thingy.

Also, when Carl saw the new book on Sunday afternoon, he wanted to know if I would read it to him. I hesitated — it’s 750 pages and quite obviously not the same kind of book as THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY — and then told him no, it was the last book and he hadn’t read the first ones yet. He asked me if I had the first ones. I told him no, but we could get them. Right now? he asked, super-super eagerly.

So Carl and I went to Barnes & Noble that very afternoon and bought both SORCERER’S STONE and CHAMBER OF SECRETS, and started reading Book One that night. He’s now four chapters in and, I think, digging it immensely. It helps that he’s also seen parts of some of the movies and has at least some concept of what he’s supposed to be “seeing”, but I think he’s appreciating this on its own merits as a story. I’ve been making a habit of asking him the next day what he remembers of where we were and what was happening, who people are, things like that, and he’s doing pretty well.

For some reason, when I thought of reading more serious books to my kids as they got older, I thought, I dunno, TREASURE ISLAND or something. The thought that I would be reading Harry Potter to Carl — and that he would seem to be enjoying it tremendously — before he turned four never really crossed my mind.