Harry Potter Week Continues at GeekMom

Harry Potter Week is coming to a close over at GeekMom, but that doesn't mean we're short on posts. As we prepare for the midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the posts are just heading up.

First up, Jenn T. shares a Harry Potter inspired dueling game of her own invention:

I own a channel-changing wand (courtesy my paycheck devouring fave site, ThinkGeek), I regularly don a Professor McGonagall costume, and have taken every blessed Which Harry Potter Character Are You quiz ever written on the internet. I draw the line at writing fan literature although that can't be far behind with the book and movie franchise drawing to a close. I have however created my own version of Wizard's Dueling to be used by my geekiest of friends. My three-year-old daughter even plays it. With the movie premier nearly here I thought I would share my abbreviated version with GeekMoms to use in the theater as you wait for the midnight showing. The beauty of this version is that it can be played from memory, much like Rock Paper Scissors. If you can remember three spells you can duel your fellow wizards. It is easy for kids to learn and you get to yell out Harry Potter spells as loud as you can.

Next, Rebecca Angel talks about how the Harry Potter phenomenon has changed the way geeks grow up in "Before Geeks Were Cool":

Being a geek is no longer geeky. Role-playing games are being used in classrooms, "graphic novels" are considered literature, conferences about geek pop culture are in major cities with thousands of attendees, and every cool kid is going to see the latest Harry Potter in the theaters. After this movie about magic and monsters, what’s the next most popular thing around? Vampire love. Yeah, times have changed.

Back in my day (creak of my ergonomic office chair) fantasy and science fiction were lumped into one genre: nerd. And that wasn’t a good thing. It was a lonely thing. Years ago there was no Harry Potter phenomenon, The Lord of the Rings had yet to come to theaters, and Star Wars consisted of three movies from the last decade. I would bring novels I was reading into school, and kids would peer at the cover with some fiery demon being fought by a sword-wielding warrior.

And lastly, I talk a bit about my attempts to ignore the Harry Potter phenomenon and subsequent failure. Let's just say it's kind of a geeky girl meets book love story.

I had every reason in the world not to read Harry Potter. I just wasn't going to do it. Oh, people told me I ought to. "You like hobbits! You like magic! You like elves!" But I didn't see the point. I had my beloved books. And by the time the craze was really hitting, I was in college. College kids have no need for silly books about schools of magic, for goodness' sake. I was an English major. I had literature to read.

Right?

So how was it that I ended up walking to the library one afternoon and, instead of getting books and journals to study, I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone? I'm not sure. I was fully prepared to hate it. To loathe it. To laugh and point and mock. To call up my Harry Potter fan friends and ask them why exactly they thought I, a serious student of the English Language, would ever stoop to read such drivel.