Week One was hard. No doubt about it. Getting back into the routine of school had the family kicking and screaming – mom and dad included.
Monday, Aug. 13, was the first day of school for Marshall, my fifth-grader, and Ellie, my second-grader. Bryce, my kindergartner who attends all day, started back Tuesday.
There was no easing into school with a half-week, as has been the case for the past several years. One year we started on Thursday. Another year we started on Wednesday. These were great. Only two or three days to do the hard time: getting up early and dragging through the day. After those short weeks, the following, full week of school was much easier.
This year, I felt like we were in the Battle of the Bulge, with no end in sight. The only difference was we were sweltering in the hottest 90+ temperatures Indiana had seen in years instead of freezing our asses off in dirty foxholes. By the end of the week, I wanted to hide in a foxhole by myself.
Each afternoon, the kids got in the van and promptly started to fight and complain. For two or three days, tears were involved. Twice during the week, tears started once we got home.
I knew it was bad Thursday when I had to scream three times to be heard, “Shut up! No more talking!” Then Bryce started crying because I scared him by yelling.
That day was probably the worst. Marshall and Ellie were fighting over trays that were spilled and kids saving seats during lunch that resulted in everyone getting assigned seats. Ellie maintained that it was all the fifth grade’s fault. Apparently, the fifth-graders did do all that she said, but Marshall felt that Ellie was unfairly blaming the fifth-graders, even though he himself did not do any of the questionable behavior.
The rotten behavior continued when I took a business call. Ellie and Bryce, who were supposed to be putting away their clean clothes, got into a fight, yelling at and hitting each other. Marshall then tried to intervene, but Ellie pulled her “smiling” trick. More blows were exchanged, more yelling was done, more attempted interruptions of my telephone call were made.
When I finally got off the phone, after apologizing multiple times and repeating the poor lady’s sign information about a dozen times, I had had it.
I sent everyone to his or her rooms. I had to put Bryce on the couch, since he and Marshall share a room and I wanted everyone separated.
Bryce was easily dispensed with. He didn’t want to be upstairs after he had finished his chores because Ellie was afraid to stay there. She chased him and hit him; he returned the blow, which was then repeated by them both until Marshall separated them, because he couldn’t do his homework with them carrying on.
However, Ellie seemed to be bothered by leaving home and staying at school so long, as well as the injustice of having to put her clothes away by herself when she was scared to be upstairs alone.
Marshall was more complicated. He lets things get to him too much, especially things that Ellie does or says. He felt Ellie was blaming the fifth grade for getting assigned seats for lunchtime and was extremely upset by that. Even when I pointed out that those things that got everyone assigned seats were, indeed, caused by fifth-graders, he was still upset. When I quizzed him if other, specific kids would have said the same things, he said he would still be upset, though not to the same degree.
Determined to make this a teachable moment, I tried to encourage Marshall to put on some “knight’s armor” against what other people say to him. I even invoked “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I don’t think I really succeeded any more than other times that we’ve talked about these same issues.
What it all boiled down to was being tired: mind-numbing, bone-wearying fatigue. The fatigue even hit Michael and I as we struggled with kids to get to sleep early each night then fought to get them up each morning.
On Friday, we overslept. I had forgotten to flip on the alarm Thursday night when I went to bed.
The kids actually cooperated quickly, though Bryce moved a little slower than the others. But everyone got dressed, had lunches packed and teeth brushed in record time. I’d like to say we made it to school on time, but we didn’t. It was still a Herculean effort for some mighty exhausted kids. Michael and I felt more rested Friday morning than we had all week. But it caught up with us that night and we all crashed pretty early.
If only this week will go smoother, but I fear it won’t.
Why, oh, why couldn’t the school board start the year midweek?
Monday, August 20, 2007
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Living Art
Art dwells within my domicile.
Put into layman’s terms: I won a painted chair at a local art auction.
More specifically, I was the first and only bid, $20, in a silent auction of chairs decorated by local artists or wannabe artists conducted during July’s Shelby County Arts Fest, a celebration of all things arts and crafts.
I feel badly that I won.
My usual practice is to attend the Arts Fest, browse the art and craft booths, inspect the juried art show on the third floor of the Indiana Downs horse track, and gaze at the decorated benches, for this year they switched to chairs of all sorts, and write a bid in on a few sheets. I’m usually among the first the write in bids on the auction sheets attached to the chairs.
This year, the organizers switched to chairs to decorate instead of benches, and they were as cute, perhaps more so, than many of the benches. Each year, visitors can write in a bid, check back later, and maybe write in a higher bid. At 5 p.m. all the chairs are “sold” to the highest bidder.
I’m never around that late, so I never bid any higher, and since I’m there early, lots of other people have the opportunity to make these objets d’arte their own.
I had a chance to put the first bids on a couple of chairs, including the one sponsored by National City Bank and decorated by the Shelbyville High School art students of Angie Palmer. All the starting bids were $10 or $20, so I put down $20, and thought nothing else about it, sure I would be outbid as I have all the other years.
The chair is adorable. It started out as a wooden chair with a woven rattan seat. The students chose a garden motif. The chair was painted green on the seat, with subtle blades of grass growing up the legs. My favorites are those harbingers of good luck, the ladybugs, sprinkled unexpectedly on the legs. Green crepe paper fringes the seat and covers where a large cushion was added. Of painted canvas, with more green background, with flowers and curlicues growing, the seat has been pronounced “pretty soft” by my oldest son, Marshall. Small white flowers reach up on green pipe cleaner stalks from the crossbar holding the front legs together. The back is painted sky blue with wispy white clouds. And the students added a bright canvas sun with orange pipe cleaner rays to the top rung of the chair back.
This cheery chair now brightens the corner of our front hallway, where it can be seen when the front door is opened. It greets our visitors with a sunny disposition that I like to think reflects the mood of our house, most of the time.
Originally, I had threatened the kids that this would be the new time-out chair. But it’s too happy for that.Maybe it should be our happy-time-in chair instead. And I’m happy that I wasn’t outbid on this wonderful piece of art.
Thank you, Angie Palmer and students, for brightening a corner where I live with your art.
Put into layman’s terms: I won a painted chair at a local art auction.
More specifically, I was the first and only bid, $20, in a silent auction of chairs decorated by local artists or wannabe artists conducted during July’s Shelby County Arts Fest, a celebration of all things arts and crafts.
I feel badly that I won.
My usual practice is to attend the Arts Fest, browse the art and craft booths, inspect the juried art show on the third floor of the Indiana Downs horse track, and gaze at the decorated benches, for this year they switched to chairs of all sorts, and write a bid in on a few sheets. I’m usually among the first the write in bids on the auction sheets attached to the chairs.
This year, the organizers switched to chairs to decorate instead of benches, and they were as cute, perhaps more so, than many of the benches. Each year, visitors can write in a bid, check back later, and maybe write in a higher bid. At 5 p.m. all the chairs are “sold” to the highest bidder.
I’m never around that late, so I never bid any higher, and since I’m there early, lots of other people have the opportunity to make these objets d’arte their own.
I had a chance to put the first bids on a couple of chairs, including the one sponsored by National City Bank and decorated by the Shelbyville High School art students of Angie Palmer. All the starting bids were $10 or $20, so I put down $20, and thought nothing else about it, sure I would be outbid as I have all the other years.
The chair is adorable. It started out as a wooden chair with a woven rattan seat. The students chose a garden motif. The chair was painted green on the seat, with subtle blades of grass growing up the legs. My favorites are those harbingers of good luck, the ladybugs, sprinkled unexpectedly on the legs. Green crepe paper fringes the seat and covers where a large cushion was added. Of painted canvas, with more green background, with flowers and curlicues growing, the seat has been pronounced “pretty soft” by my oldest son, Marshall. Small white flowers reach up on green pipe cleaner stalks from the crossbar holding the front legs together. The back is painted sky blue with wispy white clouds. And the students added a bright canvas sun with orange pipe cleaner rays to the top rung of the chair back.
This cheery chair now brightens the corner of our front hallway, where it can be seen when the front door is opened. It greets our visitors with a sunny disposition that I like to think reflects the mood of our house, most of the time.
Originally, I had threatened the kids that this would be the new time-out chair. But it’s too happy for that.Maybe it should be our happy-time-in chair instead. And I’m happy that I wasn’t outbid on this wonderful piece of art.
Thank you, Angie Palmer and students, for brightening a corner where I live with your art.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Swimming into School with Shark Week
School starts Monday, and we’ve been getting ready for a couple of weeks.
Marshall has been a big help in reassuring Bryce and Ellie that they will be OK in school. Several times I’ve asked him to come help me explain the “real” school situations that Bryce and Ellie have been concerned about.
Bryce hasn’t really appeared too anxious. He did tell the hair stylist that he wasn’t going to school when she asked him.
But, Ellie has had concerns. My favorite was when she cried to me: “I’ve never been in second grade before!” She is not convince by the fact that everyone in her first-grade class will be joining her in the same hall, just next door to their old classroom.
She then lamented that she doesn’t know her teacher, Mrs. Schroeder. When I reassured her that Mrs. Schroeder knows her, because she told me what a great help Ellie was to preschoolers last year at lunch, Ellie just looked skeptical.
She also doesn’t look forward to trying to play with one friend who is monopolized by a girl who has called her “a smelly rat,” as in “Did you invite this smelly rat to play with us?” Marshall helped out by saying girls can be really mean.
“Boys are mean,” Marshall said, “but girls are really mean and they stay mad longer.”
That is the part of girls growing up that I don’t look forward to dealing with.
Michael and I tried to approach these past couple of weeks as a training session to get in shape for school.
First we started easing the kids back into early-morning hours. Bedtime became earlier each night, until we were actually getting them into bed while the sun was still shining.
This made waking up much easier at 7 a.m. A couple of times we even got them up at 6:30. Getting them right into chores helped them stay awake. With the heat so bad, I made them play outdoors until it became too hot to breathe out there.
By 11 they were ready to come in and start lunch within a half-hour. But after lunch, with the chores done, there wasn’t much left to do except watch TV or let them drag their toys downstairs. Our upstairs gets unbearably hot with these 90+ temperatures. And our downstairs got overrun with little toys of all types and chairs and couch cushions becoming houses, forts and castles.
Then school supplies beckoned. This only consumed a little more than an hour at Wal-Mart. The crowd wasn’t too bad. But with three kids in kindergarten, second grade and fifth grade, the needs were diverse.
Bryce, who will be attending St. Joe’s all-day kindergarten program, needs two of everything. The teachers team-teach, one taking the “math things,” the other taking the “letter things,” as their letter to him explained. So it was 2 green desk boxes, 2 pairs of blunt scissors, 4 pencils, 4 glue sticks and 2 boxes of crayons. Here’s the kicker: They only need 8 crayons. A box of only 8 crayons costs 88 cents, but the box of 24 sells for 20 cents. Luckily, the teachers said they would send home the crayons that aren’t needed. So Bryce got 2 boxes of 24 crayons.
One of the crayon boxes has already been raided to fill Curious George’s backpack, which is a tiny backpack that came fastened onto a big backpack. There is a strap on the big backpack that the small one would Velcro around. It was really cute, and only $9.99. Since the old Spider-Man backpack was wearing thin in a couple of places, Bryce and Curious George became the proud new owners of plain blue, but utterly cool, backpacks.
Ellie was also seeking a fashion statement for her backpack. Months ago she decided she wanted a pink message bag instead of the usual backpack. One of her friends has one, and Ellie was quite impressed with it. To go with her messenger bag, she needed a new lunchbox. She had outgrown her Barbie lunchbox, she informed me. So she chose a stylish pink-and-gray camouflage lunch bag.
Most of Ellie’s supplies were the same, and we got new crayons and such. She did need a paint palette of 8 colors. This is new for second grade; Marshall didn’t need paint then. Folders and notebooks this year are of dolphins, whales, tigers and horses, instead of Tinkerbell, who reigned in first grade. However, a Tinkerbell pencil bag was greeted with squeals of rapture.
Marshall is in fifth grade now. Things change here. At St. Joe, they prepare the kids for middle school by providing lockers on the second floor, away from their first-floor classroom, and requiring the kids to buy combination locks. Marshall was worried about how these worked, and a boy in the aisle at Wal-Mart assured him that the middle school already has locks in the lockers and they weren’t anything to worry about. I thought that was sweet.
The fifth grade requires 5 folders and a couple of notebooks, one of which is a 3-subject one, plus a composition book, and several different art supplies to be kept in a separate art box in their locker. Fifth grade also has homework in every subject every night, I understand. Marshall usually goes through 2 backpacks per year anyway because of rough usage. With all the weight he’ll be packing around this year, I’m wondering if I’ll be buying 2 more before the year is over. Marshall chose a sunny yellow backpack, which is his new favorite color.
Exciting, however, is that fifth-graders get to use ink pens! Marshall’s going to have to shape up his handwriting, though.
All in all, our preparations for school have gone swimmingly, until this week. “Shark Week” has been showing each night on Animal Plant. Two shows, starting at 8 and 9, have kept us all up really late. The kids have been camping out in the living room because it is so hot, and Michael loves Shark Week, so everyone has been awake until 10 p.m. Getting up early the next morning has suffered.
I don’t have much hope of getting them up at 6 a.m. on Monday, I’m afraid. Here’s hoping we all survive next week (a full week of school, instead of starting midweek like we have the past several years). Could be rough.
Marshall has been a big help in reassuring Bryce and Ellie that they will be OK in school. Several times I’ve asked him to come help me explain the “real” school situations that Bryce and Ellie have been concerned about.
Bryce hasn’t really appeared too anxious. He did tell the hair stylist that he wasn’t going to school when she asked him.
But, Ellie has had concerns. My favorite was when she cried to me: “I’ve never been in second grade before!” She is not convince by the fact that everyone in her first-grade class will be joining her in the same hall, just next door to their old classroom.
She then lamented that she doesn’t know her teacher, Mrs. Schroeder. When I reassured her that Mrs. Schroeder knows her, because she told me what a great help Ellie was to preschoolers last year at lunch, Ellie just looked skeptical.
She also doesn’t look forward to trying to play with one friend who is monopolized by a girl who has called her “a smelly rat,” as in “Did you invite this smelly rat to play with us?” Marshall helped out by saying girls can be really mean.
“Boys are mean,” Marshall said, “but girls are really mean and they stay mad longer.”
That is the part of girls growing up that I don’t look forward to dealing with.
Michael and I tried to approach these past couple of weeks as a training session to get in shape for school.
First we started easing the kids back into early-morning hours. Bedtime became earlier each night, until we were actually getting them into bed while the sun was still shining.
This made waking up much easier at 7 a.m. A couple of times we even got them up at 6:30. Getting them right into chores helped them stay awake. With the heat so bad, I made them play outdoors until it became too hot to breathe out there.
By 11 they were ready to come in and start lunch within a half-hour. But after lunch, with the chores done, there wasn’t much left to do except watch TV or let them drag their toys downstairs. Our upstairs gets unbearably hot with these 90+ temperatures. And our downstairs got overrun with little toys of all types and chairs and couch cushions becoming houses, forts and castles.
Then school supplies beckoned. This only consumed a little more than an hour at Wal-Mart. The crowd wasn’t too bad. But with three kids in kindergarten, second grade and fifth grade, the needs were diverse.
Bryce, who will be attending St. Joe’s all-day kindergarten program, needs two of everything. The teachers team-teach, one taking the “math things,” the other taking the “letter things,” as their letter to him explained. So it was 2 green desk boxes, 2 pairs of blunt scissors, 4 pencils, 4 glue sticks and 2 boxes of crayons. Here’s the kicker: They only need 8 crayons. A box of only 8 crayons costs 88 cents, but the box of 24 sells for 20 cents. Luckily, the teachers said they would send home the crayons that aren’t needed. So Bryce got 2 boxes of 24 crayons.
One of the crayon boxes has already been raided to fill Curious George’s backpack, which is a tiny backpack that came fastened onto a big backpack. There is a strap on the big backpack that the small one would Velcro around. It was really cute, and only $9.99. Since the old Spider-Man backpack was wearing thin in a couple of places, Bryce and Curious George became the proud new owners of plain blue, but utterly cool, backpacks.
Ellie was also seeking a fashion statement for her backpack. Months ago she decided she wanted a pink message bag instead of the usual backpack. One of her friends has one, and Ellie was quite impressed with it. To go with her messenger bag, she needed a new lunchbox. She had outgrown her Barbie lunchbox, she informed me. So she chose a stylish pink-and-gray camouflage lunch bag.
Most of Ellie’s supplies were the same, and we got new crayons and such. She did need a paint palette of 8 colors. This is new for second grade; Marshall didn’t need paint then. Folders and notebooks this year are of dolphins, whales, tigers and horses, instead of Tinkerbell, who reigned in first grade. However, a Tinkerbell pencil bag was greeted with squeals of rapture.
Marshall is in fifth grade now. Things change here. At St. Joe, they prepare the kids for middle school by providing lockers on the second floor, away from their first-floor classroom, and requiring the kids to buy combination locks. Marshall was worried about how these worked, and a boy in the aisle at Wal-Mart assured him that the middle school already has locks in the lockers and they weren’t anything to worry about. I thought that was sweet.
The fifth grade requires 5 folders and a couple of notebooks, one of which is a 3-subject one, plus a composition book, and several different art supplies to be kept in a separate art box in their locker. Fifth grade also has homework in every subject every night, I understand. Marshall usually goes through 2 backpacks per year anyway because of rough usage. With all the weight he’ll be packing around this year, I’m wondering if I’ll be buying 2 more before the year is over. Marshall chose a sunny yellow backpack, which is his new favorite color.
Exciting, however, is that fifth-graders get to use ink pens! Marshall’s going to have to shape up his handwriting, though.
All in all, our preparations for school have gone swimmingly, until this week. “Shark Week” has been showing each night on Animal Plant. Two shows, starting at 8 and 9, have kept us all up really late. The kids have been camping out in the living room because it is so hot, and Michael loves Shark Week, so everyone has been awake until 10 p.m. Getting up early the next morning has suffered.
I don’t have much hope of getting them up at 6 a.m. on Monday, I’m afraid. Here’s hoping we all survive next week (a full week of school, instead of starting midweek like we have the past several years). Could be rough.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Rowling dedicates 'Deathly Hallows' to me
J.K. Rowling dedicated “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” to me. It says: The dedication of this book is split seven ways: … and to you, if you have stuck with Harry until the very end.”
Harry Potter No. 7 that wraps up nearly all loose ends in this saga, introduces some new twists, satisfies me, but still leaves me wanting more. The magical world that Rowling created is so wonderful and pleasing that I hate to say goodbye to it. Rowling has ruled out prequels and sequels, even though the ending certainly could be the start of another seven-years-at-Hogwarts stories.
Other critics have compared the series to a waste of old-growth forests and silly when rated next to Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and Dostoyevsky. Though one writer compared the fascination with Harry with the excitement readers greeted each installment of Dickens.
That’s what Rowling and the Harry Potter series are about: a wonderful world, expertly imagined and crafted, with enticing characters and fun dialogue.
How we deal with death is a major theme of the series, and we are treated to several deaths and endings in DH. I cried several times. When you invest time into characters and a story, it’s hard not to be personally affected on some level.
SPOILER ALERT!
Now I’m going to discuss specific scenes in DH, so if you haven’t read it, you may want to wait until you finish, unless you just like to read my writing, then go ahead.
Once again a book opens with Death Eaters, but here Voldemort is in their midst. We see the powerful attracted by the Dark Arts and the thuggish. We also witness remorse, which is a theme throughout DH, through the Malfoys. Even Voldemort could be redeemable if he shows remorse. Lucius and Narcissa show that intelligent people can spot the difference between playing at being evil and being consumed by evil, and they tread a fine line in order to avoid being consumed by Voldemort. This chapter foreshadows parts of the end, with Severus Snape being the most trusted servant of Voldemort, the bond of Bellatrix LeStrange in love with her evil master, the Malfoys pulling away, the torture for fun of Muggles, and the fear through which Voldemort rules.
We are treated to a fun chapter in which we find out that Dudley Dursley shows gratitude, perhaps a bit of remorse, toward Harry. Aunt Petunia can’t summon any of those feelings; while Uncle Vernon perhaps had a twinge of understanding of the pain he has caused Harry.
Then, the good guys show up in force in the Order of the Phoenix, to spirit Harry to safety. And our first tragedies strike. We find out the depths of Ron and Hermione’s love of Harry and a determination to stick with him even though it very well could mean their deaths. From the beginning of DH, Harry shows plenty of remorse, regret, humility and an unwillingness to accept the sacrifice of others for him.
Here Harry and his friends start the epic journey. As with many epic journeys, theirs is epic … and long. Each chapter is needed, supplying vital information that Harry will need to destroy the Horcruxes in which Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul. Harry learns of some weaknesses of Voldemort. The friends’ relationships are tested. His best friend, Ron, deserts him. But heroically saving Harry’s life, Ron returns. In nearly every chapter Harry must deal with Dark attacks. And finally, the friends are captured. In places during this journey, it was hard to keep reading.
With help from Dobby the house elf, Harry, Ron and Hermione escape from the Malfoy mansion, where Hermione is tortured. Dobby dies as he brings Harry to safety. I was crushed. Dobby and Harry had such a bond, and his death galvanizes Harry to move forward with his plans to defeat Voldemort.
As the pace speeds up, Voldemort finally sees Harry’s plan.
And fans find out that the slightly misspelled anagram of Severus Snape, Persues Evans, is true. Snape has loved Lily Evans for all his life, protected her son at the cost of his own life, and is the “horrible boy” that told Lily about dementors, to whom Aunt Petunia referred in “Half-Blood Prince.” I was right: Snape is good, deep down. And as he dies, he looks into Harry’s eyes and sees Lily’s.
I was puzzled by the introduction of the Deathly Hallows into the storyline. It felt almost like cheating. But once again Harry had to move forward without everything being in place. Once again he survives, in a Christ-like way, which I had expected in some way. Even though his death had me in tears. Returning again to the theme of remorse, Harry’s offer of redemption to Voldemort was needed but of course not taken.
The last few chapters were highly satisfying. Rowling neatly ties up most of the threads and skates past being maudlin. Others may argue with that assessment, even as tragedy dots the battle scene.
No, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” isn’t a weighty work of finest literature, but it is an engaging story well told that has enticed legions of children and adults to turn from the videogames and television to explore the wonders of the written word.
I’m glad to have been a part of Harry’s saga, I’m glad to have been there from the beginning, I’m glad to have been there at the end. I hope many others feel the same way now, and I hope many others have the chance to feel so for many years to come.
Harry Potter No. 7 that wraps up nearly all loose ends in this saga, introduces some new twists, satisfies me, but still leaves me wanting more. The magical world that Rowling created is so wonderful and pleasing that I hate to say goodbye to it. Rowling has ruled out prequels and sequels, even though the ending certainly could be the start of another seven-years-at-Hogwarts stories.
Other critics have compared the series to a waste of old-growth forests and silly when rated next to Tolstoy, Fitzgerald and Dostoyevsky. Though one writer compared the fascination with Harry with the excitement readers greeted each installment of Dickens.
That’s what Rowling and the Harry Potter series are about: a wonderful world, expertly imagined and crafted, with enticing characters and fun dialogue.
How we deal with death is a major theme of the series, and we are treated to several deaths and endings in DH. I cried several times. When you invest time into characters and a story, it’s hard not to be personally affected on some level.
SPOILER ALERT!
Now I’m going to discuss specific scenes in DH, so if you haven’t read it, you may want to wait until you finish, unless you just like to read my writing, then go ahead.
Once again a book opens with Death Eaters, but here Voldemort is in their midst. We see the powerful attracted by the Dark Arts and the thuggish. We also witness remorse, which is a theme throughout DH, through the Malfoys. Even Voldemort could be redeemable if he shows remorse. Lucius and Narcissa show that intelligent people can spot the difference between playing at being evil and being consumed by evil, and they tread a fine line in order to avoid being consumed by Voldemort. This chapter foreshadows parts of the end, with Severus Snape being the most trusted servant of Voldemort, the bond of Bellatrix LeStrange in love with her evil master, the Malfoys pulling away, the torture for fun of Muggles, and the fear through which Voldemort rules.
We are treated to a fun chapter in which we find out that Dudley Dursley shows gratitude, perhaps a bit of remorse, toward Harry. Aunt Petunia can’t summon any of those feelings; while Uncle Vernon perhaps had a twinge of understanding of the pain he has caused Harry.
Then, the good guys show up in force in the Order of the Phoenix, to spirit Harry to safety. And our first tragedies strike. We find out the depths of Ron and Hermione’s love of Harry and a determination to stick with him even though it very well could mean their deaths. From the beginning of DH, Harry shows plenty of remorse, regret, humility and an unwillingness to accept the sacrifice of others for him.
Here Harry and his friends start the epic journey. As with many epic journeys, theirs is epic … and long. Each chapter is needed, supplying vital information that Harry will need to destroy the Horcruxes in which Voldemort has hidden parts of his soul. Harry learns of some weaknesses of Voldemort. The friends’ relationships are tested. His best friend, Ron, deserts him. But heroically saving Harry’s life, Ron returns. In nearly every chapter Harry must deal with Dark attacks. And finally, the friends are captured. In places during this journey, it was hard to keep reading.
With help from Dobby the house elf, Harry, Ron and Hermione escape from the Malfoy mansion, where Hermione is tortured. Dobby dies as he brings Harry to safety. I was crushed. Dobby and Harry had such a bond, and his death galvanizes Harry to move forward with his plans to defeat Voldemort.
As the pace speeds up, Voldemort finally sees Harry’s plan.
And fans find out that the slightly misspelled anagram of Severus Snape, Persues Evans, is true. Snape has loved Lily Evans for all his life, protected her son at the cost of his own life, and is the “horrible boy” that told Lily about dementors, to whom Aunt Petunia referred in “Half-Blood Prince.” I was right: Snape is good, deep down. And as he dies, he looks into Harry’s eyes and sees Lily’s.
I was puzzled by the introduction of the Deathly Hallows into the storyline. It felt almost like cheating. But once again Harry had to move forward without everything being in place. Once again he survives, in a Christ-like way, which I had expected in some way. Even though his death had me in tears. Returning again to the theme of remorse, Harry’s offer of redemption to Voldemort was needed but of course not taken.
The last few chapters were highly satisfying. Rowling neatly ties up most of the threads and skates past being maudlin. Others may argue with that assessment, even as tragedy dots the battle scene.
No, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” isn’t a weighty work of finest literature, but it is an engaging story well told that has enticed legions of children and adults to turn from the videogames and television to explore the wonders of the written word.
I’m glad to have been a part of Harry’s saga, I’m glad to have been there from the beginning, I’m glad to have been there at the end. I hope many others feel the same way now, and I hope many others have the chance to feel so for many years to come.
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