Potty about Harry

Muggles all over the world are celebrating -- the fifth Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, opened today, and the seventh and last installment of the book series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, will be released on July 21st.

Even though I'm not tattoing my forehead with a scar and donning my Quidditch gear, I love the Harry Potter series. I was drawn into the characters and plots just as I had been many years ago when I first read that other great children's fantasy series, C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (and FYI, the second movie of the series, Prince Caspian, will be out in May 2008). Even though movie reviews have been less than stellar and rumors of Harry's death in the last book have been flying around, I fully intend to see the movie and read the book and enjoy myself thoroughly.

Here are a few Harry-related numerical facts I came up with:

• 8 - number of Harry Potter books I've read (Books 1 thru 6, plus JK Rowling's 2 books for Comic Relief -- Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander, and Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp)
• 0 - number of breaks I took when reading each of the six Harry Potter books
• 5 - aproximate number of hours it took me to read the longest book, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• 129 - days since I first put my name down on the waitlist for The Deathly Hallows at my local library
• 42 - my place on the library waitlist
• 48 - number of copies the library is purchasing
• 152 - number of people on the library waitlist as of today
• 111 million - number of search results when I Googled "Harry Potter"

Click here for some other interesting numerical facts about the Harry Potter phenomenon. And enjoy the coming weeks!