Happy Birthday, Harry Potter!

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Harry Potter, you magical son of a bitch. Look at all the joy you’ve brought into this world. Books, movies, merchandise, theme parks – all of it. Today, we celebrate 20 years of the wizardry you’ve performed…on our hearts.

I know, sentimental. But, listen – I love Harry Potter. I love the entire universe. I mean, for a solid chunk of time, far too long for an adult to have such fantasies, I’ve wanted to give up my life as a writer and enroll at Hogwarts. I’m not ashamed to admit that. J.K. Rowling’s work has had that profound of an affect on me.

I doubt that I’ll ever be able to influence anyone to give up their lives in an effort to join a fictional wizard school by writing shitty comedy blogs, but nonetheless, that’s the kind of sentiment all writers should strive to create in our readers.

Credit story to CNN:

Believe it or not, the world almost missed out on Harry Potter.

Author J.K. Rowling has told the story of how she received “loads” of rejections before “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (known in the U.S. as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”) was finally published on June 26, 1997.
Rowling once told fans that she couldn’t even get books published under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, which she used for some thrillers she wrote.
Some success stories are downright crazy, and this is one of them – littered with failure. Can you imagine being one of the publishers who rejected Harry Potter? How many of these people are still alive today? Missing the boat on BILLIONS of dollars might have me considering a permanent nap in the Cumberland River. Just saying.
But, like a lot of success stories that are littered with failure, the fact that it finally happened is a true testament to the power of an artist’s will when they believe in themselves. It’s about persistence, and in this case, it paid off in a big way. It’s not just the money, either. It’s the way the Harry Potter universe has shaped our culture over the last two decades and the effect the franchise has had on children:
In 2005, The Guardian wrote about a survey that found children and teachers credited Rowling’s books with boosting literacy.
According to the report, 84% of [teachers] said “that the boy wizard has had a positive impact on children’s reading abilities and 73% admit that they have been surprised by some of the children that have managed to read Potter.”
 I know this series helped me out when I was in middle school. We had this program called AR (Accelerated Reading), in which books had a certain point value, and we had to accumulate a certain number of points each semester. I struggled big time. As a kid, I just hated to read. It was boring – I’d have much rather played outside, where my imagination could run wild.
In a weird way, these Harry Potter books engaged that runaway freight train of an imagination to a point that saw me completely immersed in these books. It’s good to see I wasn’t the only one.
Over the years, the seven Potter novels have sold more than 450 million copies and have been translated into more than 60 languages.
And, yeah….there’s the money, too. So much money. My goodness. Does Rowling take baths in money? I would. Definitely would.
All in all, I can’t think of a larger scale fantasy epic that transcended the literary world the way Harry Potter did. The dude with the lightning scar has become one of the cultural phenomenons of my generation. And, it’s good to see it’s being kept alive for generations to come.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. A strong advocate of GSD (get shit done) and #BeBetter, he’s down to talk Tennessee Titans and Alabama Crimson Tide football over a beer any day. Check him out covering the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley, @WrestlingNewsCo

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