It’s with complete serendipity that I’m writing this first blog post on July 31. I didn’t realize the significance of the approaching date, as I’ve been racing all week to meet my writing goal in Camp NaNoWriMo of 30,000 words. I didn’t notice the changeover from July 30 as I sat up all night, tinkering with setting up this site and cursing at all the code going just slightly wrong. Now, hours later, the sun is about to rise and I’ve yet to be visited by the Sandman. I am weary, and not yet finished.

But delight finds us in even the most trying of times, and as July 31 dawns, I find myself happy to be awake to whisper a “Happy Birthday” to a very dear friend of mine; a dear friend of many of ours, actually: Harry Potter. I just Googled when his birth year was, and despite making his first appearance in 1997, he was actually born in 1980. Imagine that. Harry Potter is 35 today.

I had intended to write a typical “introductory” first blog post (which I’ll get to another time), but writing of Harry and what he means to me as an author and a person seemed much more important. I didn’t entirely miss out on the Harry Potter phenomenon, but I wasn’t the target demographic, either. I was a senior in high school before I picked up the books off my younger brother’s shelf (Goblet of Fire had been recently published), and I was doing a report on magic in literature. I devoured them, reading them all in a week as I ignored life and even did that “tuck the book under the desk thing” and read during class. Here were books that were clever, and fun, and smart: J.K. Rowling chocked them full of information about myths and language while keeping true to the greater story of friendship and love. It must have been quite the experience to grow up alongside Harry and his friends. Today, realizing that Harry Potter is two years older than I am? That’s pretty sweet news.

In her genre-busting behemoth of a blockbuster, J.K. Rowling single-handedly created a children’s fantasy genre that hadn’t existed in the mainstream before. It’s a market that has grown and found remarkable success in intervening years, and I am grateful to her for that. Not because I am a writer in this genre of middle-grade contemporary fantasy, but because of WHY I write in this genre, why books from my own childhood have stayed imprinted on my heart and mind, shaping my worldview for a lifetime to come: The Giver. The Starlight Crystal. A Wrinkle in Time.

It’s because adolescence is such a fascinating time in the journey of life. Children have this beautiful childlike wonder that sadly fades as they grow, and the teen years are fraught with trying to fit in, trying to develop who you are while juggling all these separate pressures and expectations. Much of that wonder gets lost, and they are the lucky ones. The others lose it altogether.

Children’s contemporary fantasy, however, populated with the likes of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, straddles both of those worlds beautifully. The characters are facing these issues of growing up while still engaging in games of fantasy and heroic make-believe; except, to them, it’s not a game. Through these characters, we are showing today’s youth that you can grow up AND maintain your sense of wonder. It’s an important message, perhaps the most important of all. How else will you recognize the fantastic, if you no longer believe in it?

So, thank you, Harry, for paving the way for us all to have many great reminders to hold fast to that precious childhood commodity, and happy birthday. As I embark on my own journey to that first publication, hopefully you will soon have some new literary friends to populate your fantastical antics. For even if you are 35 today by our Muggle time, you are forever immortalized in Ms. Rowling’s esteemed novels as the intrepid, spirited young boy who defined an age.