hp and the book police

In case you've been living under a media-void rock, you're most likely aware that the 7th and final Harry Potter book is coming out this weekend. I'm assuming you are also aware that this is a very big deal. Others have already expressed their dissatisfaction (however briefly) with the early reviews of "Deathly Hallows," published by a bunch of spoil sports over at The New York Times and the Baltimore Sun. Apparently the reviewers got the books from a bookstore in NYC that broke their contract with Scholastic and sold the books early, which is about the stupidest thing a book store could do seeing as they will probably never be able to sell another Scholastic publication again.

But anyway, I was reading an article today in The Detroit News about the controversy and this passage made me laugh out loud:

Hannah Murphy, 15, of Marquette...has a friend whose older sister read "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" online. Older sister kept trying to tell her younger brother what happens to Harry.

"He is avoiding home, and his sister, because he wants to wait for the book to come out," Murphy said. Asked for comment, neither sibling would comply, fearing that Scholastic might try to find them all the way in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan."

Maybe it's just me, but I find hilarious the idea of children being afraid to reveal that they've sneaked an early peek at "Deathly Hallows" for fear that Rowling's Harry Potter police would track them down in their UP homes. And I'm curious what those police would look like. Death Eaters? Shadowy dementors set to suck all the joy out of them? Clearly they would have some affiliation with the house of Slytherin...

Regardless, Scholastic can at least take comfort in the knowledge that whereas they may have been unsuccessful in instilling the fear of God into the bookstores, at least they were able to terrify small children. Cuz I hear that's hard to do.