One of my earliest entries into the world of fantasy novels was the Harry Potter books. (The other was Melanie Rawn’s Dragon Prince series, which ties into this little story…) I remember trying to find something to read one day (mom had told me I was forbidden to read the Dragon Prince series, because there was a dragon on the cover, I’m not even kidding), with a huge limitation – “NO DRAGONS on the cover, they’re associated with the devil! And none of that fantasy crap!” I scoured the bookshelf in the room I shared with my sister, trying to find something remotely fantasy-related, as I’d been bitten by the fantasy bug hard and my seventeen-year-old self wanted to lose myself in a world of magic and mysterious creatures.
My eyes widened when I came across a new-looking copy of the first Harry Potter book. I don’t remember when we got it, and I don’t think it’d even been opened at that point. I looked at the front cover leaf, determined it was about wizards, and thought to myself, “hah – I can’t read a fantasy novel with dragons on the cover, but this one has a WIZARD. And mom must have bought it, since it’s here on the bookshelf, so I’m gonna read it!”
