Bringing Some Hermione Into The World

I might as well have been reading under the covers with a flashlight after my bedtime.

Last week, I found myself regressing into Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

I’m not going to pretend like this was some parenting adventure. I read zero words of this saga to Beckett. And, please, when I do, it will be a calculated experience with such high expectations that there will be no way his reaction could possibly meet them.

No, I reread it for me. I returned to Hogwarts for another year, because that’s just what I needed to do. Harry, Hermione, Ron...bring it on home, friends.

With the election drawing near and our current reign of terror cultivating more harm and fear; with schools reopening and our babies befriending classmates through plexiglass...I retreated to Hogwarts.

My reading experience last week was so different from my first Harry Potter experience, the one at age eleven when I did actually read under the covers by flashlight after bedtime. My initial Harry Potter experience showed me comradery, love, and courage. It modeled honoring diversity and how to be a defender of good in the world.

I realized this time, through her preeminent series, J.K. Rowling laid a foundation for a world I had no idea would parallel our current reality. She primed a generation of hearts and minds for the day we would need to find our own roles in Dumbledore’s Army.

This realization made me wonder: What am I doing to fight the good fight as an adult? What kind of good am I wielding? What is my metaphorical wand?

Last week, Harry Potter reminded me that we read fiction, and read our children fiction, to prepare for a future we cannot predict. Philip Pullman said it best at a speech at the University of East Anglia: “I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference [...] We should act as if the universe were listening to us and responding; we should act as if life were going to win.”

So I’m back now from Hogwarts, trying to figure out how I’m going to bring a little Hermione into the world.

#harrypotter #jkrowling #votelikehermione

Voldemort May Rise, But...

I thought I knew how November 8, 2016 would end because the storybooks had always told me so.

Harry Potter...Voldemort is defeated.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe...The witch does not prevail.

But we know the ending to November 8, 2016.

It was not enough to vote early and wear my “Hillary is my homegirl” t-shirt hidden under my teacher sweater...I should have known.

As my post-traumatic feelings rear their ugly heads, I remember something special about the early hours of election day 2016...A little girl named Grace.

I read my first graders Grace For President, Kelly diPucchio’s precious picture book, about a little girl that runs for class president in a competitive campaign against a classmate. She persists despite her challenging, but complacent opponent, and wins. We discussed the vocabulary...campaign, candidate, slogan...we analyzed the theme and beginning, middle and end.

In 2016, in what I thought were the moments leading up to a watershed election, this book was particularly exciting. My version of working the crowd of brilliant first graders… Dedication and a commitment to meaningful, love-filled change always win.

What I forgot about are the complex stories, the stories with multiple plotlines. I forgot about the stories in which we wonder how the protagonist will ever overcome. I forgot about the complex stories when the dark side is sometimes victorious.

Voldemort will rise and Aslan will fall.

This week when I read Grace for President to Beckett, though, I was reminded at the end that there is an illustration of her, as an adult, being sworn into office. I was reminded that her story didn’t end when she won her class election. I was reminded that real stories only end when we stop. We have to acknowledge that sometimes the bad guys are victorious AND trust that ultimately we will persist with our belief in what is good. Ultimately, we can fall and rise again. Ultimately, means nothing at all really. The only conclusion to the story, the only final word, is that we keep going, keep trying.

I’m afraid of what’s to come, but I know we’ll figure it out. Ultimately, Grace taught me to persist.

#graceforpresident

#kellydipucchio

#childrensliterature