Found In My Basement: Harry Potter

I tried reading Harry Potter to The Moose (now 9) several times over the last few years, but he was never really interested. I don't think we made it past the first chapter or two. Since we're stuck at home during the pandemic, I tried again a few weeks ago and now we're only two chapters away from finishing the first book, "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." He still doesn't have the patience to read more than a chapter or so a day, but he seems to be enjoying it. (Of course, he does have the patience to sit and watch hours worth of Dude Perfect videos. Those guys seem to yell A LOT!)

Anyway, now that we're almost done with the first book, I thought it would make sense to find the other books so that we can continue reading the series. Many people have bookshelves filled with books easily accessible. Not in my house! While we have bookshelves in the kids' rooms, those generally contain books appropriate for preschool and early elementary school kids. Any other free space in our home has been overtaken by toys and games and now learning areas as we prepare for The Moose (4th grade) and Pedro Tulo (1st grade) to begin the school year at home. Books are generally in boxes in various parts of the house, mostly in the basement storage closet. So I spent Sunday trying to find the Harry Potter books.

As you can see from the picture, I was successful. Not pictured is the amount of time it took to find the books and to move things around the basement closet. I also found this Pittsburgh Steelers commemorative bag of potato chips with a coupon for $10 the purchase of $50 at Dick's Sporting Goods. Unfortunately, the coupon expired in January 2003. I'm throwing these chips out with the garbage tonight.

You might be wondering why there are only five books pictured of the seven-book series. The first book is on the couch, but I'm missing the fourth book, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." When I went to England in 2000, I bought this book at a London bookstore not long after it came out as a gift for my mom. She got me into the Harry Potter series, and I read the first three books during my time in England, particularly traveling to and from Lancaster on the weekends. I finished the fourth book on the flight back to Pittsburgh, and my mom still has it today. What's neat about this edition is that it's in British English rather than American English. Oh, here's a picture of Ziggy wanting to see what I was doing.

By the way, this blog is so old that I can still read posts from when the sixth and seventh books came out. I wrote two posts of my eagerly awaiting the sixth book to arrive via UPS that would basically be tweets today. I also shared predictions for the final book, and briefly how I dressed up as Dean Thomas when this book was released at midnight at a Harry Potter party.

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