The Boy Who Lived. I'm getting ready to take the number one daughter to Borders where she will be waiting for the release of the sixth book just after midnight. She finished Phoenix in less than 24 hours, so I imagine I'll be reading this one starting Sunday.

I'm trying to decide whether to wear my Eskimo Joe's "Joey Potter" T-shirt to take her -- should I really embarass her? The Maruader's T-shirt, if I had one, would be cool. This one is so over-the-top, it could trigger the nerd-dad factor.

You may have seen the stories from earlier this week about the Pope supposedly condemning the Potter series -- when I read the letters, I saw this was hype. Now that has been confirmed -- see here and follow the links.

Next to the Narnia Chronicles, the Potter books may be the best kids books ever written. See John Granger's book "Looking for God in Harry Potter." See also, this article posted on-line by Christianity Today and this essay in Touchstone.

And who is the Half-Blood Prince? My stretch guess is Dean Thomas, but Granger's guess, Godric Gryffindor, makes a lot more sense. I guess I'll know by this time next week.

(the title of this post is the title of Chapter One from the first book -- one of the great chapter titles in history, in my opinion.)

More.

Jonathan Last: Appeasement fails with warlocks too