Anybody else here get talked into hitting a bookstore at midnight to buy a freakin’ children’s book? I tried convincing Mrs. ricepad - “…let’s just order it at Amazon.com or something…” - but no…she thought it would be fun to take the kids on a midnight ride to Barnes & Noble so we could be among the first…didn’t get to bed until 2 AM…I coulda been POSTING, fer cryin’ out loud…
The kids stood in line for a book.
Not a new splatter game. Not a new movie that embarassed you.
Just a book.
I happen to like HP so maybe I’m biased. But he’s got the kids reading!
That was a GOOD line to stand in. That was a GOOD reason to be up at midnight. That was a GOOD thing for a family to participate in. Together.
Call it a “count your blessings” moment.
My bookstore opened at 12 for one hour. We sold approximately half out stock of 500 copies in that hour, so safe to say, yeah, a lot of people stood in line. I was fortunate enough to not work the midnight shift, but I hear it was a lot of fun.
No, I got to work today, when we ran out of copies. (The publisher shorted us 500 more copies, THANKS, Scholastic!) Telling hundreds of kids that they would have to wait a couple more days sucked. I felt terrible, they were so disappointed.
Your point is well-taken, and I certainly don’t mean to make it sound like I don’t appreciate that they love to read…then again, my kids are kinda odd…they love broccoli and cauliflower…would rather watch The History Channel than Cartoon Network…and love 70s Motown…
Good kids! Sounds like my niece (to whom I turn over HP IV tomorrow), except she likes classic 80’s rock…
Now if they read Harry Potter and liked the Dead, Mother and the Holding Co. and Quicksilver Messenger Service… now those’d be some cool kids!
Wanna hear a weird story?
I was at work Thursday, and I bought a newspaper. On the front page, there was a story about this woman in Burton, MI (which is right next door to Flint, where I live), who was out shopping at a local grocery store on Wednesday afternoon. She was walking down the aisle where the books and magazines are, and she noticed a Harry Potter book on the shelf. Then she does a double-take. It was the new book. She snatched it & stuck it in her cart for her 11-year-old son, who is a huge fan of the books. She went through the checkout, paid for the book, then told the clerk that the book had been embargoed. Oh yeah. She made darn sure she’d paid for it, so they couldn’t take it back.
So, thanks to an error on the part of a stock worker at this grocery store, a local boy got his hands on the book three days before the rest of the world. They even put a picture of him holding the book on the front page of the paper.
Yow. Lucky kid. At the time the story in the paper was printed, he had only read a few pages, but he said he liked it. No details or anything.
I, for one, am very glad that kids are going gaga for a book. My kids are way too young for these books, but I do read to them every night, and they love it. If someday, there’s a book that they’ve just gotta have, like these kids have to have the Harry Potter series, darn tootin’ I’ll be standing in line for it, regardless of the hour or day. Oh yeah.
I ordered with the discount via Amazon and it was sent out on next day delivery - complimentary - and arrived on Saturday. I didn’t have to rope all three kids into the car on Friday at midnight for which I am very, very happy. My son’s nose is in it right now.
You can find & download some of his books there in alt.binaries.ebooks
I betcha it won’t be long before someone posts this book there too.
I was at Best Buy last night and they had a bunch of them right by the checkout line. I tried to talk my husband into buying one but he reminded me that we didn’t have any kids. I even tried convincing him that I was a kid at heart but that didn’t fly. I guess I’m going to have to get it and hide it under the bed like I did the others. 
Time to clear this up.
Harry Potter is not the writer, he is the CHARACTER. HIS books are things like the Monster Book of Monsters, and an ever-expanding collection of texts by Miranda Goshawk.
J.K. Rowling, who is a woman, is the author of the Harry Potter books.
Fortunately my family of six preordered HP4 (only one book for the six of us . . . and my mother refuses to read out loud) looooong ago, so we got it shipped free.
And if you thought this one was huge, the preordering for HP5 is going to be so massive Amazon might actually start making money . . . 
Let’s not forget Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky. I found that hilarious!