Growing up with Harry
J. K. ROWLING was standing in front of me. Even at age 10, I was aware of what a surreal experience it was. I was aware of how small and ordinary she appeared, how impossible it seemed that such a colossus had sprung from the very mind that hovered 3 feet from me. I was also aware of how remarkable it was that she had graced the Framingham Barnes & Noble with her distinguished presence, and -- oh, God, here's my five seconds with her, what to say, what to say. . .
"Your books," I stammered, "are . . . great."
"Thank you," she beamed with an elegance that almost cancel ed out my awkwardness. "I like your hat." She reached out and unofficially blessed my dingy little cap (inscribed with various Potterisms) with her hand before signing my copy of her holy text. I stumbled away, cursing my ineloquence. Such was the effect that the Harry Potter books had on me, and I hate to admit it, but I'd probably be at as much of a loss for words if I were face to face with Rowling today, at age 17.
How could I express what I've witnessed her books do to kids on a daily basis? The Potter books were more than entertainment; they formed an independent universe, peopled with characters to care for and worry about. In fact, Harry Potter has proven a much-needed constant in the lives of countless kids. I always had friends in elementary school with whom I could discuss and debate all things Potter, but I have also witnessed how Rowling's characters can provide companionship for lonely preteens.
I've always had the sense that Harry & Co. are going about their lives at the same time as we are, in a different plane at once unimaginably distant and accessible with the touch of a page. The time that elapses painfully between each new book is not merely however long it takes for Rowling to sculpt the next installment. These characters are living beings, and the agony of waiting is wondering what's happening to them now.
I was three years younger than Harry when I discovered the series in 1998, and because of his warped aging process, we've ended up in the same place: 17, about to enter our respective final years of secondary school. My life hasn't exactly paralleled Harry's constant life-or-death battles, but in a sense we've grown up together. I remember the intensity of ever-present Potter anticipation, and I shudder to think of the confusion that will follow the release of the final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." The pre-teen world is about to suffer from a sort of post-apocalyptic depression, a sense of profound futility.
Literary scholar Harold Bloom has argued that the Harry Potter phenomenon represented "another confirmation" of the modern "dumbing-down" of culture. It's beyond argument that this dumbing-down exists and is present in every form of art today.
Of course Rowling is no Shakespeare; nor need she be. She has created a cast of characters who, through the passionate and earnest devotion of millions of fans, have become almost human. And if Bloom thinks that there is something shallow in this devotion, then I think that he is missing the point of literature for children. Bloom extolled Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books and Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows." I read those books at about age 10, and I remember being conscious that they were written by adults for children.
The Harry Potter series, in spite of (or perhaps due to) its lack of literary pretensions, might as well have just materialized, fully formed, in my hungry mind. I never felt Rowling's presence towering over the stories she wove. I think that by the time Harry arrived at Hogwarts in the first book, her tale had transcended her capacity to tell it and became something organic, living independently in the mind of everyone who cares about it.
I did not love Harry Potter the way I enjoyed other more transitory childhood pleasures. I loved Harry Potter the way I love literary masters like Shakespeare. Have my tastes shifted as I have matured? Absolutely. But this does not lessen the worth of my 10-year-old passion by one iota. Nor does it make me any less excited to wait in line with the rest when the seventh book is finally let loose to the world.
Matt Aucoin is entering his senior year at Medfield High School. 
