Not-so-guilty Pleasures

Posted at 2:00 AM, Tuesday, July 24, 2007

We currently have three of the seven Harry Potter books checked out from the library. I am reading book four to Yonatan, and I am re-reading book five. After putting it off for four years, Bobby has finally read book five and is now starting book six. I read book six 1 1/2 years ago, and it has been REALLY hard waiting for him to catch up with me so that I can actually talk about it. Once he's polished off book six, we'll see if one of my students can lend us book seven so that we can see how it all ends. (No spoilers please!)

I started reading Harry Potter because all of my students were reading it, but I've kept up because I love it. I find the simple good-versus-evil story line to be very compelling, and I've become quite attached to the characters. Since it's been 10 years since the first book was published, I can now chart my history against Harry's progress through wizarding school. I have fond memories of being picked up at the Bozeman, Montana airport by my mother-in-law and Bobby's niece just after book four was published. Felisha kept after us on the forty-minute drive to Bobby's parents' home: Can I tell you who died? Don't you want to know who died?! It hasn't been very useful reading professionally. After I read book five the first time, I hatched this idea for a sermon entitled "Professor Snape and the Jewish Concept of Repentance," but had to dump the idea after I hit book six, for reasons that will only be clear to those of you that have read book six. I've also discovered that a relatively modest number of adults have either read the books or seen the movies, and so they might not care much who Professor Snape is and whether Harry Potter should ask for his forgiveness for his father's actions or not.

Our household currently has about thirty-five items checked out from the Prospect Library, which is par for the course for us. Along with the battered Harry Potter books, we have a number of videotapes and DVDs checked out for the kids, plus at least a dozen easy-readers for our increasingly enthusiastic six-year-old reader. And Bobby always has a curious variety of books that have caught his eye.

I know now that we were spoiled rotten for years by the lavish Sewickley Public Library near our home in Ambridge. Not only were the facilities beautiful and their collection excellent, but the Carnegie Library interlibrary loan system gave us access to every work available in the Pittsburgh area. It was very rare for us to go looking for a book that wasn't available somewhere. I even ordered obscure sheet music from the Carnegie Library's central branch.

Our library here is much more modest. The Prospect Library is also part of a network, but there are only five libraries in the network, and none has a particularly impressive collection. And some topics are virtually unavailable. There are only 26 titles in the network that are indexed under the topic "Judaism," while the Carnegie Library system lists over 1000 titles.

Still, we are great fans of our public library. Yonatan and Nadav are both happy to join me a for a visit there once a week or so. Yonatan plays learning games on the library's computer, and Nadav enjoys the growing variety of toys there. I have been bringing home Australian children's movies in an effort to expand our knowledge of what's out there. The happiest discovery so far has been an old British cartoon "Danger Mouse," which both boys loved. And I see that a few copies are available for viewing for those of you still in southwestern Pennsylvania!