Fans get their hands on last ‘Harry Potter’

updated 7:57 p.m. ET July 21, 2007

NEW YORK - The books are out; the word is spreading.

“The last Potter is amazing. It has definitely gone way beyond what I expected,” Deb Kiehlmeier, 16, of the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, N.J., says of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” which was released Saturday to worldwide ecstasy.

“Harry Potter fans are always trying to predict what will happen next, and J.K. Rowling always gives them something different,” Kiehlmeier told The Associated Press.

On Day 1 of the A.H. (After Harry) Era, reviewers and readers mourned the end of a historic series that proved young people can still crave the written word like the crispiest French fry. It was a day for the sleepless and the sleepy to enjoy and to recall one last, fresh taste of Potter.

The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune were among those bowing before Rowling’s achievement. She was compared to the greats of children’s and fantasy authors — J.R.R. Tolkien, L. Frank Baum, Roald Dahl — and held in awe for living up to the most intimidating standards.

“To create such an extraordinary world, fill it with complicated characters and convergent back stories is beyond the reach of most writers,” wrote the Los Angeles Times’ Mary McNamara.

“To sustain that world and grow those characters over seven books filled with plot twists, folklore and even a magical curriculum and then bring it all to an articulate, emotionally wrenching conclusion — that is a truly epic quest.”

'Classic'
The AP’s Deepti Hajela called the seventh and final Potter a “classic,” writing that Rowling “completes her entertaining, compulsively readable series with a book that is both heartbreaking and hopeful, one that left this reader sad to say goodbye to Harry but thoroughly satisfied at how it all went.”

Some readers, ironically, were tougher than the critics, especially about the 759-page book’s brief epilogue. One reader on the Potter fan site www.mugglenet.com even suggested skipping the last chapter, or at least reading it later so the rest of the book could be thoroughly enjoyed first.

Sales for final Potter book now top 11 million Living, breathing Harry Potter weathers storm Rowling: I wanted to kill parents Stop your sobbing! More Potter to come No more happiness after ‘Deathly Hallows’ Readers rave about ‘Deathly Hallows’ Potter spell broken for fans with missing pages Review: ‘Deathly Hallows’ packs a punch

For those who can’t wait to find out whether Harry lives, Potter fan Julie Neal advises patience. In a customer review on Amazon.com, she writes, “Regardless of the temptation, don’t skip to the end. It doesn’t work.

The answers to all those key questions everyone wants to know unfold throughout the story.”

For some, a magical feeling
At the Barnes & Noble in Manhattan’s Union Square, Anna Todd and Kelsey Barry, both 20, jumped up and down, screaming and hugging as they touched their Harry Potter books and smelled them as if handling a newborn baby.

“It smells like fresh parchment,” said Barry. “It smells like magic.”

Barry waited hours; others waited days. One man even risked his life for Potter. In Canberra, Australia, a 21-year-old man jumped into the frigid waters of Lake Burley Griffin on Friday afternoon to retrieve a pre-order voucher he had dropped. Paramedics found the man shivering and distressed — and without the voucher, Emergency Services spokesman Darren Cutrupi said. He was given another voucher by the bookstore.

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