My first Potter experience was when I was five, and my Mom attempted to read the first book to me. I had a short attention span and I fell asleep while she was reading to me at bed time. I didn’t pay much attention to Harry Potter again until I was 8, and I found the audio book in my closet. I put it on and fell in love. I quickly reserved the rest of the remaining 4 books on tape, and listened to them every waking second, and well into the night. I associations much of my childhood with Jim Dale’s voice, and the magic that I felt when listening to the books. As the years went by my love only intensified, and I progressed to reading the books, although to this day I still enjoy listening to the audiobooks. After Half Blood Prince, I got more involved in the online fandom, and shortly after started attending Wizard Rock concerts, reading and writing fanfiction, and doing countless fan arts. I met one of my best friends on an online penpal club, where we bonded over our love for the series. We worked away the penpal club’s rules of not giving our personal information, and we contacted each other out side of the club. She remains one of my closest friends, and even though she lives across the country and we have never met, I feel that I can tell her anything. She is one of the only people who truly understands my love for Harry Potter, and I am so grateful to the series for leading me to her. Long Live Harry Potter.

I remember the first time I picked up a HP book very clearly! (: I had seen Sorcerer’s Stone with my dad and step mom in theaters a couple months prior, and I had been talking about it non-stop since. I found a copy of Sorcerer’s Stone in a stack of my mom’s books, and I was really excited, thinking she liked HP too. I was disappointed to find out she’d only bought it to scan for inappropriate content like profanity and (I regret to say she was one of THOSE Christians) black magic/sacrilege. She had never even scanned it, but she let me read it with the promise I would tell her if there was “anything bad” in it. I opened it and started to read…and even at my first grade reading level (admittedly higher than some first graders) I finished it the same day. (:

I was a sophomore in college when I finally read Harry Potter. I had been turning my nose up at the series for several years, and while I was home for Christmas my mother insisted I read the first book. We had been going through a very rough few years and weren’t very close at that point, but literature was one of the few things we could talk about and bond over. In retrospect, that little nudge of hers has been the source of so much enjoyment and comfort over the last few years. It also taught me not to be such a snob ;)

I’m curious—where is the next question? Shouldn’t be the winner be released as its been a day..? Just curious, perhaps I misread, but I thought each day there’d be a new question/winner..Hmm..

I always thought Harry Potter was a boys book.When I read that first word off the page, I knew the book was magical. I read and read and before I knew it, the day was gone. Harry Potter opened up my heart in ways I can’t explain. I am the Harry Potter Freak of America.

I was in third grade. My teacher told me to read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I did. I was hooked on it. It was like a drug. And honestly, I fell in love with the characters. I felt as if I was Hermione. And when I read the sixth book, I felt sorry for Snape and Draco and became a Slytherin (Ironic, right?). I can honestly say that my third grade teacher was awesome for telling me to read the Sorcerer’s Stone.

I know this comment is late, but I wanted to share anyway. I started reading Harry Potter in December when I was in 7th or 8th grade (about a decade ago). My mom, sister, and I were at Target shopping for Christmas gifts when I saw the books (Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets were out at that time). I hadn’t heard anything about Harry Potter at all, and I accidentally grabbed Chamber of Secrets and practically begged my mom to get it for me for Christmas while she was putting all the stuff on the check out lane. She gave in, and on Christmas morning, I began my journey into the world of Harry Potter. Of course, I had to backtrack a little after I realized I had started with book two and not book one haha. But it was amazing, and I still remember staying up til three in the morning, reading by lamplight and just waiting for Voldemort to come strolling across my yard lol

Because I began reading so early, and because, at six or seven, you aren’t aware enough of what should be mentally filed in the “Memories I Really Should Make A Point to Remember” cabinet, I don’t remember reading any of the books before book 4, though I know that I did read them. With Book 4, I didn’t get to go to a release party, but I got the book a few days after it came out, and just remember – still a bit foggy at 8 – refusing to talk to or interact with anyone until I’d finished, which was somewhere on the order of 2 or 3 days, pausing with extreme annoyance for the occasional meal, night of sleep, etc.
Order of the Phoenix was the first I vividly remember receiving, because it came on my doorstep from Amazon, and I was 11, so I was incredibly excited that I was finally old enough to go to Hogwarts. What I remember most was convincing myself that, even though I was able to skip a grade in Muggle school, according to Hogwarts, I turned 11 after the year started, so I’d be getting my letter late, i.e. next summer. And I’m still making up justifications for that one.. ;D

well, at first, i didnt want to read itat all. but i made a deal with my best friend that if she read twilight i would read harry potter. well obviously i got the better end of the deal :) so i went home and started the first one. i was super skeptical when i started the book, but by the time i had turned the first page i already loved it. it just seemed to amazing that someone could think up all of the amazing things in harry potter. honestly, jk rowling is one of the most brilliant people in the WORLD. who would have EVER thought to make up voldemort, or all of the spells, or especially the magical creatures.wow.

My third grade teacher Mrs.Lescard read it out loud at school/ was completely entrance and when I got home I couldn’t run to the bookstore fast enough. My mom didn’t want to but it for me because of the witchcraft but I begged and pleaded and eventually she gave in. She thought that I was young and I would past the phase soon enough. Now it is over a decade later and I am more in love with the books than ever. My mom refused to read them but last summer I followed her around and I read all seven books out loud to her in two months!

Sadly I only remember picking the second book on the classroom shelf and don’t remember reading it…just the fact that after that I read the first, then third then fourth. Remember seeing the first movie though…I was smaller than the cinema seats!

My first memory would be being in fourth grade and every afternoon after recess we would have reading time with the teacher. She would read a book each month and I always really looked forward to it. In January it was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and I just remember being so so excited and happy. I loved it from the start.
I think Harry Potter really got me into reading. I just became such an avid reader after that. The following year when Chamber of Secrets came out I just had to be at the midnight release with my dad past bed time to get my copy.

So,
Dear Mr. Potter,

Thank you for really beginning my love affair with books as well as teaching me quite a lot about life, love, and friendship among many other things. Also, for letting me stick with you til’ the very end as a now 20 year old.