HP 7 was duly purchased on Saturday morning and delivered into the waiting hands of C, 14 and desperate to get started on the book. As I reported last week, she had a birthday party to attend on Saturday afternoon, but, other than that, each waking hour was spent hunched over Rowling's pages. The other parents at eight-year-old W's basketball match on Saturday morning hadn't picked up a copy by eleven, and a few had even forgotten it was being released that day. Strange, hermit-like creatures they be.
C woke with a cold on Sunday: I'm not sure if it was the late night on Saturday that brought it on or the trauma of being back at school for a week. She was only about a third through the book at this stage.
Yum Cha lunch with my sister, and her husband, who told me she'd had to wait in line for an hour to pick up a copy at Border's in Chadstone and about another hour to pay for it. C continues to read at the table. One waitress tells us she finished it at 4 a.m., while Herself asks what happens at the end, and the table howls her down. W is unimpressed with the whole thing and appears to be coming down with the same lurgy as C.
Sunday night and Herself is falling alseep on the couch in front of the ABC, I'm in another room trying to do some paperwork and C, next door, is squealing out "Oh no", and "Oh my God" at about 15 minute intervals. Sounds impressive anyway.
Monday morning and C is too sick for school - W isn't much better and is also at home - so she might just finish it after all.
In the end I got to pick it up just once after delivering it home. It's big. Herself is home looking after the children and may be a few hundred pages into it by the time I get home tonight.
The blogosphere seems to be consumed with the problem of what kids will read next. Given that this is the biggest run of hits in children's literature that I can remember, I tend to think something will crop up. Maybe not as big as this, but something. Children's literature will never be the same again. And a good thing too.
