Is it time for Harry Potter mania yet?
The new and last Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, will be in stores July 21 (well, technically, it will be available July 21; who knows if it will be "in stores" since it may sell out in 2 seconds), and the world is holding its breath. As am I. Scholastic, the publisher, is planning a 12-million copy first run, which is almost 2 million more than what they did for Harry Potter 6. (Source: Publisher's Weekly)
Scholastic is also planning a madcap series of library-inspired road trips: "On June 2, a Potter-inspired Knight bus tour will begin from New York City and visit 40 libraries in 10 cities across the country. At each stop, Scholastic will video fans' thoughts on the Potter series and run clips of the interviews on its Web site." Will they come to Seattle? We can only hope. If not, we can certainly forlornly watch the clips online and pretend we don't care.
In the meantime, everybody and their grandmother has a theory as to what will happen in Book 7. Scholastic, again, has a podcast site where three "experts" (why are they experts? don't ask me) give you their speculations. There is also a oft-updated podcast called Pottercast you can check out, which is part of this Potter news site, and if that's not enough for you people I don't know what is.
If any readers out there have speculations, use the Comments to sing 'em out. I certainly have my own, and I'll share if you do.