Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Regular school is out but Hogwarts is in

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by Jack Thorne

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Who knew that in times of darkness all I needed was a little Harry Potter?  I sat down on Easter Sunday and burned my way through this in the space of a few hours, feeling happier on the other side. It’s a quick but compelling read, true enough to the Harry Potter format to scratch that nostalgic itch. Firstly, it should be noted that this is a play script, not a novel, and it wasn’t written by J.K. Rowling although it did involve her (it […]

If you’re going to ban Harry Potter, at least come up with a better reason

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling

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Bingo 23 Banned Book The Harry Potter series has been challenged for many things including glorifying witchcraft, encouraging bad behavior like disobeying rules and lying, and for being un-Christian. This recent ban though is almost laughable, but it did make the international news (click for link): Reverend Dan Reehill, head St Edward Catholic School in Nashville, Tennessee, apparently decided that the spells presented in the series were real. He supposedly consulted the Vatican on this, and had the books removed from his school library so […]

Accio Cannonball

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Cannonball! Reading the Harry Potter series this time felt different than past times. I’m several years older than I was last time I read them, and this time I was reading them not just for fun, but to review for CBR (it makes a difference, I’ve found. . .). It’s also a time in American history when reading about the fight against the Death Eaters and their focus on purebloods is a little more uncomfortable than it has been in the past (I am not […]

Harry Potter and the Curse of Expectation

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I own twenty-one Harry Potter books: a set in Dutch, a set in English, and a set of e-books. This is excluding my copies of Quidditch through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I own three sets of Harry Potter related clothing and all eight films on DVD. I’ve gone to midnight screenings. I’ve braved my irrational yet powerful loathing of Eddie Redmayne and gone to see Fantastic Beasts. I used to moderate subsections of a thriving a Harry Potter internet […]



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