We are only as strong as we are united

Harry Potter.

Now I know what you're thinking...this silly young girl thinks Harry Potter changed her life? Oh how she needs to get her heads out of the clouds.

I never liked to read. Actually, I hated it. Forcing me to read a certain number of books in grade school only made it worse.

When I was about 16 I had really started becoming my own. I was over being in high school and I was doing things because I wanted to, not because adults made me do them. I cared about my classes, really, for the first time, and I realized I liked to learn.

Over the summer between my junior and senior year the fifth Harry Potter movie was coming out. I had been a huge movie fan, but had never touched the books. But the previews were doing a less than satisfactory job of explaining to me what this "Order of the Phoenix" was about. And my mother with a not so sharp memory, couldn't even start to explain what happened.

So I picked it up. This 870 page book I began to read, it was going to be a challenge, but I really wanted to know what to expect. I read, and read and read for days. It took me 5 days to read it; incredible, considering books with 200 pages max that I was required to read I never actually finished. Once I finished I felt exhilarated, I realized I had been missing out on something great.

And for the next two weeks I read every harry potter book that had been published. I loved every minute of it. Now I love to read. That was a life changing book and moment for me.