"Because I am a sucker and the mother of an only child, I get my kid small gifts for her half-birthday. For the momentous EIGHT AND A HALF it ended up being the seventh (and last, or so I hear) Harry Potter book. Nora genuinely enjoys reading these, but I think there is a certain degree of fangirl shit going on with regard to the Harry Potter franchise, both with her and among her peers—it is not enough to get Harry Potter books from the library, you need to own them; the books’ lengths and girths are compared, like some literary locker-room wangfest; and you are expected to have a favorite book and vigorously defend that choice. I roll my eyes a bit at the whole thing but cannot deny that listening to a bunch of pre-teens arguing about books is adorable."
--Mimi Smartypants