Can you feel it?  The excitement?  The anticipation?  The sense of thousands, if not millions, of fantasy fans holding their breath, waiting for the next installment in their favorite series?

The release of the final Harry Potter movie would be enough in and of itself to cause quite a stir, but this week also marks the release of the long-awaited next installment in George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series--A Dance with Dragons.  Needless to say, it's going to be quite a week!


Of course we're excited about both of these events, but we're particularly interested in the final Harry Potter  movies because it feels like the end of something significant.  Many people can use these books as a marker in their lives--"I grew up with Harry Potter."  "Harry Potter saw me through grad school."  "I raised my children with Harry Potter."  And now that period of time is over.  Finished.

We will be reminiscing about our favorite moments from the series this week, but we will also be looking at some of the many ways the Harry Potter series has branched out.  Jen Parrish will be joining us this week, and she talks about some of the jewelry she has designed--including one piece that can be seen in the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix!  There is now a Harry Potter-themed amusement park in Orlando, which we will get a look at, too.  And Clare Flesch has written an essay about how it's important to look past the fun and excitement of the Harry Potter series to see how these books speak to some of the more serious issues in our lives.

Interestingly enough, it's also been exactly 11 years since Harold Bloom's (in)famous critique of the Harry Potter series in the Wall Street Journal, in which he wrote, "One can reasonably doubt that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is going to prove a classic of children's literature."  As you might expect, Bloom's article sparked quite a debate, and I think this comment in particular still leads to a legitimate question--Is the Harry Potter series a classic work of children's literature, or is it just a pop culture phenomenon that will be forgotten in 20 years?  We'd love to know what you think, and we'd encourage you to weigh in on our forums over here.

But before all the Harry Potter craziness gets started, we have one more thought about fairy tales, inspired by our discussion of re-told fairy tales from last week.  This afternoon, Kat Howard writes about Pamela Dean's Tam Lin, and her essay is the perfect example of how important these stories can be in our lives.  So make sure you stop back, both this afternoon and later this week, to get in on the fun!