Magic, mystery await in the world of words

"No, son, I'm sorry. The letter from Hogwarts didn't come."

For the three or four of you out there who don't know, in the Harry Potter series, potential witches and wizards receive a letter near their 11th birthday to tell them they have been accepted into the wizarding school.

Buzz started reading the Harry Potter series this summer and in six months has almost finished the entire saga. He wasn't much of a reader before, but I hooked him by slipping the companion book of fairy tales, "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" into his Christmas stocking last year. It lay around the house unopened until the first summer weekend at camp. Rain kept us from the pool and reception kept us from the clubhouse television, and he was forced to actually -- gasp! -- read. Since then, he has been well and truly immersed in the land of wizards, witches and muggles.

The other day, he was in his room and he was so quiet, I wondered if something had happened to his PlayStation, or if he'd slipped out the window to run away with the roving horde of beta testers. The TV was off. The video game console was off. The boy was lying down, his chin on his hands, and he was vacuuming words off the page as fast as J.K. Rowling can write them. What a wonderful sight!

He doesn't mind being a non-magical muggle, as long as he gets to keep reading about the magic makers. He's not even a quarter of the way through the last book (and it's a long book) and he's already wondering what he can read next. What can keep the magic alive for him?

Luckily, I already have the Percy Jackson series lined up, as well as the Chronicles of Prydain, the Narnian Chronicles, the Dark is Rising series, everything by Ursula LeGuin and Madeleine L'engle, and Tolkein ... But the one I really want him to read is "The Bridge to Terabithia." Don't go by the movie --please. The book is not about the fantasy world, but about the children and their need to create the fantasy world. It's also about the even more important need to return to reality, bearing and using the lessons learned in the land of magic. Those who can come back through the wardrobe door and still be a Queen of Narnia, those who can fight for right without using magic swords or wands -- those are the ones prepared to face the real world.

Those of us (like me, I confess) who would rather be able to twitch our noses to clean the house, a la Samantha Stevens, are the ones who blow way too much money on lottery tickets instead of savings bonds. Fantasy is fun as long as you can remember it's just that -- fantasy.

But still... but still ... if you could pick one fantasy world to live in, which one would it be? For me, it would depend on what role I would play. My luck, if I ended up in Harry Potter's world, I'd be a muggle, clueless to the magic happening around me, or envious of the ones who could do it. If I got to live in the world of Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders, would I be riding a gold dragon, or would I be a pot-scrubbing drudge for a petty lord? On Discworld, I'd want to be Death, who is the coolest character with all the good lines, and in Narnia, I'd want to be a dryad, but with my luck, I'd end up as one of the hapless Discworld law enforcement guys or a Narnian Marshwiggle.

Choosing our particular fantasy worlds is a lot like those folks who claim to remember their further incarnations, have you ever noticed that they are always reincarnated priests or kings or queens? No one ever says, "I was the chamber pot scrubber for the 15th Earl of Forgottenbothamshire until I was 12, then I died of an infected hangnail."

My mother instilled in me my love of books, but definitely not my love of fantasy. She couldn't understand why I wanted to read about dragons and unicorns and wizards when there were all those real people with real stories out there. I did get to tweak her nose once, though, when I read one of her favorite books -- "On the Beach" by Neville Shute -- and realized it was, technically, post-Apocalyptic speculative fiction. In other words, sci-fi.

"I don't care about that," she protested. "It's just a good story!"

Yeah, Mom, so is "The Lord of the Rings..."

Buzz wants to dissect the story as he reads it. He gets puzzled by something, or he wants to know why one character did such and such, and together, we try to figure it out. It's fun, watching his mind work around characters and conundrums an 11-year-old isn't supposed to be ready for. And yet, he is. When one evil teacher punishes harry in a cruel and unfair way, he asked me how that could happen.

"Why didn't he call the school board?" Buzz asked. "That can't be legal, can it?"

Rather than explain the vagaries of English boarding school culture and social mores, I just said "Tattling would have only made it worse. Besides -- the important thing was that Harry learned to deal with it himself, and by asking his friends for help."

You see, leaving the dragons and potions and broomsticks behind, every work of fiction has one basic element. It tells a story. The best works are the ones you learn from without even realizing it, from real facts to life messages. Buy the time I finished reading James Clavell's "Shogun," I could read sentences of Japanese without translation and I wasn't even aware of being taught the language. Harry Potter isn't so much about magic as it is about solving problems yourself -- and knowing when to ask for help.

My mom liked her life lessons tied up in pre-WWII British accents. My best friend likes hers wrapped in historical romances. My brother wanted high-tech science fiction and my son likes wizards. It doesn't matter how you dress up the dish, it all serves to nourish. Buzz isn't getting that invitation to attend Hogwarts -- but he has an open invitation to a thousand worlds and histories, all waiting for him through library doors.

-- Mary Reeves is a Times-Gazette staff writer. She can be reached at mreeves@t-g.com.