since i didn't see a topic for it: 20 years ago YESTERDAY

[flutterscotch]

I was just out of high school.  I was too busy working several jobs between HS and college to even have noticed.

But I have read them all and I really want to do Salem, MA-centered Fanfiction about a Salem academy...but as Salem actually is.

The concept still is very similar to the Worst Witch, which I grew up with. On a lot of levels. I mean, she did make it different enough to stand out as a story on it's own, I'm not saying that - but there are a lot of resonant parallels and sometimes it bugs me a bit that HP got all this attention for being something new and different when Jill Murphy already trod the magic school concept some time earlier with Mildred, Maud and Ethel.

This is the reason I read Harry Potter. 

Because of The Worst Witch (which was not popular in book form in the US, you had to really track them down), I will watch anything where there's a witch/wizard school and someone fails spectacularly at being a witch/wizard.

The funny thing is that the first time I saw the TV movie with Fariuza Balk I thought it was stupid. I was 8 and my mom's best friend's daughter LOVED it, so we had to watch it all the time.  And given that it was HBO in the 80s it was on endlessly, but my brother and I would make fun of the Tim Curry scene. I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show a few years later when it was released on VHS (Yeah, I was like 12. Good job, adults around me) and Tim Curry in general grew on me, quickly becoming my must-watch Halloween treat. So I tracked down as many of the books I could find.  There were only 3 at the time.

And then I discovered a Wizard of Earthsea.

For my money though, the best book about a witch or wizard school and absolute failure in the exact way I love though is Diana Wynne Jones' Year of the Griffin.

[Beldarna]

I was 14. Read the first one when I was 16. Hooked ever since and is a proud Ravenclaw.

[dashesndots]

I was 12 in 1997, although I'm pretty sure I didn't read the first four books until 2000 or later, during the three year publishing gap.  Then had to wait for Order of the Phoenix

I don't find the writing itself to be particular great - probably doesn't help being way older than the target audience, especially for the first few books - but her world building and characters are so much fun. 

I love the movies too!

[Bren41882]

I was 16 I remember our teacher reading it to us my sophomore year I was hooked still am

[katrine2309]

Hm, 17 or 16 I guess. I never read the books though. One of my friends did, and she was crazy about it so I knew about it from her. The same friend who dragged me to see all the movies with her and compared them to the books afterward. The books I never read. Oh joy...

[Strawberrysweets]

In 1997 I was 7. Beeing born in January 1990, it's pretty much easy to count.
I grew up with HP, got the first book when I was 11 and as in the end in 2007 when the last book was released he had 17 years then in the story, so as me.

You are just two months older then me

I think I got some books by a friend 4 years after they were released in Norway as she wanted the english versions. A year later I donated the books.

[Sky_Rocket_Sammie]

I was 21 and when I picked up the book for my birthday that year I nearly passed it over. Thinking it would be too easy and or childish for me. So, so glad I gave it a try and now all these years later I'm a fan.