Harry entered our lives in late 1999 as much by chance as choice. I troll for books and when I read about HP and the SS was intrigued enough to buy it. My wife and I like to end the day sitting in bed reading and as soon as I finished I handed it to her without a word. Quickly we were both hooked. I found that COS was available and ordered it immediately and, as we live in the states, ordered POA from the UK.
I have read many other books that create a world, a world so complete that it is as familiar as our own. HP is a world that makes me wish it were more real than my own, a world so real that I wish we lived there.
That I am still reading and re-reading HP, over a decade later is testament to J.K. Rowling’s gift to us all.
Thanks Jo!

I remeber the first time perfectly! I was in the 5th grade and my sister had come in for a visit and brought me the first book in paperback. She said I hate to read it because it was the tops on all the charts and there were currently two more out. So the night after she went home I curled up in bed and started to read, it was the first time I really go into a book on my own. After that I started begging my mom for the rest of the series because I just had to know what happened next! About a week later my mom surprised me all three books in hardcover, and after that I’ve gotten each book the day its come and finished them all in four days or less. :) Harry Potter has been, and always will be, my life.

I was sitting around and it was summer break. I saw the book lying around, and i was bored, so i started to read it. Once i started i couldn’t stop. I found myself staying up all night to finish the whole series, and i finished in less than a week. My mom had read the first four books to me before, but that’s when i was a lot younger, and i didn’t remember much. After i had read the series, i watched the movies that had come out already, and loved how they had adapted most of them. I remember thinking that Harry Potter is part of me now, and it will never fade. No matter how many other good series may come out, Harry Potter will always be the best of them all.

My parents didn’t allow me to read them, due to the whole “witchcraft” thing. However, my school partnered with Scholastic to bring Reading Is Fundamental to my school. Each kid got to pick out one book, completely free of charge. Telling an avid reader she can’t read is like saying I could have freshly-baked treats before dinner…so I picked up Chamber of Secrets. They didn’t have the first one, but I didn’t care. I had done it—I’d gotten my hands on a copy! My first memories of reading the series were on the school bus, bundled up in my snow jacket and boots. The floors were icey and covered in slush, and I remember being worried my book would get wet and ruined. I read the entire book in secret to and from school. It was blissful. I was so in love with Harry’s world! My parents eventually found out and allowed me to read it, thank goodness! I’m 18 now anyways, ha ha!

Naturally, I mean “could not have freshly-baked treats”. Woops.

My first memory of reading Harry Potter was in 2007 when I had to actually be talked into reading them from my highschool english teacher/family friend. I read all 7 books in a week(I don’t think I slept or ate in that week lol).

I was in 4th grade and we used to do class readings and my teacher wanted us to read the first Harry Potter book. It was about a year after it was released. I immediately fell in love. It changed my life. From then on I got my copy at midnight of the release date =]

I recall being forced to sneak the first three books home with me in the sixth grade due to my mother’s irrational fear of magical corruption in her younglings. Thankfully she has relented over the years and even accompanied my brothers and I to see the last film in theaters. But I don’t regret a single moment of my small rebellion. Not even my being forced to stay home the next day because, according to my mother, “No child spends 5 hours in the bathroom without SOMETHING being wrong with them!!!”. Thank goodness I was a fast reader. :P

It was 1999, I was a young mother working three jobs trying to make enough money to keep our family out of bankruptcy (didn’t work…). My husband and I had heard of the books for the last few months, but then he went on a business trip and needed to find something to read on the plane. Brookstones had the first two books available. He brought them home, raving about them and shoved them in my hands saying – “You HAVE to read these!” I had them finished two nights later.

I specifically remember how Snape reminded me so much of my own father – sarcastic comments, diabolical sense of humor, Chemistry teacher concerned with the welfare of his students. This is what I saw as an adult reading a book written from a child’s perspective. I couldn’t wait for PoA to be released later that year. So, I have been a fan from nearly the beginning. The first words caught me and held me nearly as much as the opening lines to “Tale of Two Cities”. The brilliance behind the world, the underlying message of Love Conquers All, and the characters brought to life by an amazing writer have kept my own Dementors at bay and given me many Patronus moments to remember over the years. Thank you JKR, and thank you Leaky for being there nearly the entire time as well. It’s been one hell of a ride.

I had resisted reading Harry Potter because it had been described to me as “a boy uses magic to solve mysteries”, which honestly did not sound that interesting to me (for some reason – I like magical stories). My friend, Lucy, kept bugging me to read them and I would not, because I thought they may be comic-bookey. Then I heard the televangelist, Pat Robertson, complaining about how the Harry Potter books were leading children to Satan. I thought wow, maybe these have more substance than I thought! So Lucy’s daughter lent me Sorcerer’s Stone. I didn’t get up till it was finished, and was in love with owls and Dumbledore’s knowledge of what ear wax tastes like. Then that evening I was called for my job (wildlife rescues) to pick up an injured owl, my first ever injured owl! I couldn’t believe the serendipity! It took me a second day to find her, and she is one of the only rescues I have done that made me cry.

@Gwynog’srabbit: I ADORE that story :):)

It was during a summer evening when I was four that my mom introduced me to magic. I was raised with bedtime stories, and because I wasn’t yet old enough to read, she would use different voices to narrate this fantastic story of a world I have now come to know so well. The story of a boy who lived in a cupboard under the stairs had become my entire world, and when I had learned to read a year and a half later, I visited the world on my own, and have been a dedicated reader since.

I’d been wanting to read the books for ages but didn’t “find the time” until I was recuperating from surgery in November 2004. I started my first re-read the following summer and I haven’t stopped since!

My first memory of reading Harry Potter was me being on the school bus in middle school reading a Harry Potter book and finishing it. Knowing that my friends were reading the series as well I pleaded with them to get them to give me the next book in the series. I remember wanting to read them so bad. From then I have loved to read, most of all Harry Potter books, and haven’t stopped since.

My first memory of reading Harry Potter was me being on the school bus in middle school reading a Harry Potter book and finishing it. Knowing that my friends were reading the series as well I pleaded with them to get them to give me the next book in the series. I remember wanting to read them so bad. From then I have loved to read, most of all Harry Potter books, and haven’t stopped since.