Abigail M. Schilling

by Jennie

Abigail asked me to blog for her and since I'm not writing in my own blog this month, I said yes. I also said yes because I have this overwhelming urge to please people. I find it very, very difficult to say no, which is why I hardly ever answer my phone.

ANYWAY. So I'm taking time out of my busy schedule to blog. And by busy schedule, of course I mean rereading Harry Potter STRAIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING. I started this project about a week and a half ago, I think? Probably right around the time I stopped spewing crazy all over the Internets. You see, I spew a lot of crazy all over the Internets so I had a whole bunch of time to kill.

I just started Prisoner of Azkaban yesterday. OK, confession? Right now I can't remember why I wanted to write about Harry Potter. Because what am I going to tell you? I really like it? CLEARLY I really like it, otherwise I wouldn't be reading it ALL OVER AGAIN when I have a stack of overdue library books just begging to be read. Seriously. I can hear them begging right now. Well. All but Fitzgerald. He's just hanging out with a drink and a cigarette because he KNOWS I'll be back.

Here's how it began. OK, so there was this wizard named Voldemort. Ha! Just kidding. You'll just have to read it yourself. Why haven't you read it yet? I'm not judging. My roommate hasn't read ANY of them, even though I keep bugging her to. I find it hard to believe that anyone WOULDN'T want to read them, but even I was skeptical at first.

Oh yes. That's right. When I picked up The Sorcerer's Stone, I had no idea what I was in for. I worked at a library in high school and one rainy Saturday afternoon, I was in the break room by myself. None of my friends were working and I had forgotten to bring a book to read. I know what you're saying. Jennie. You were in a library. Why didn't you just go grab a book off the shelves? Well. Because I'm lazy and I only got 15 minutes for my break so I wasn't about to waste any of it trolling the aisles when I would be doing that again in 15 minutes anyway.

So I picked up a book that was lying on the table. I was all, "What the hell is this? Why is this fool riding a broomstick? What's smeared on his forehead? Poo? Holy crapstick, is that a UNICORN?!" The children's librarian happened to walk in as I was examining the cover.

"Oh!" she said. "That book! You'll love it . . . I couldn't put it down."

Pfft, I thought, because I didn't care for the children's librarian, who was a close-talker and who carried a cloud of BO wherever she went. Also, she was always wandering around SMILING like the village idiot. But that idiot was right. I was hooked as soon as Hagrid and his motorcycle fell out of the sky. I read that book all through my break, snuck it out of the library, and read the entire thing that weekend. The books kept coming and I kept reading. I read until my eyes were dry and bloodshot and my hands were cramping from the weight of the book (seriously, book 5, I'm looking at you) but I kept reading. And I haven't stopped since.