Tom Felton/Draco Malfoy—Beyond the Wand
The Harry Potter books came along at exactly the right time for my daughter and me. She was in third grade when I bought "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." We read it aloud in the evenings...I would read a page out loud, and then she would read a paragraph. This went on until book 4 ("Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"), when I told her that our process was too slow, and she needed to read it herself (while I did the same). We always had just one book but used two bookmarks as we leap-frogged each other's reading. I was an early-morning reader and she read far into the night. Thus, the leap-frog technique. When the movies came out, we went to every midnight screening dressed in costume. She designated me as Professor Trelawney, which meant I could raid my clothes closet for appropriate crazy garb. The whole thing was fantastic and fun, and we still love Harry Potter. In fact, this year she led a committee of fellow enthusiasts who helped to prepare for the Kent, Ohio "Wizardly World; my daughter's committee was in charge of props. That meant her apartment was awash in things like a golden headmaster's chair...dementors...and other accoutrements.
When I saw that Tom Felton, who played Draco Malfoy, had written a memoir, I decided to jump in and read it. And I'm glad I did.
No, it is definitely not heavy lifting to read this book. And there are many times when it feels like reading an issue of Entertainment Weekly or some such Hollywood rag. But there is something appealing about this book--narrated by Tom--and the way he weaves in his time on the Harry Potter sets and his life "after Potter." He has good humor...remembers his fellow actors with love and respect...confesses to being a bit of a pill...and is generally charming. He also lands rather unflinchingly on the time in his life when things were going awry (again, post Potter). Although he had a hard time of things--not as bad as many but still not good--he had people who cared enough about him to help him find his way out of those dark days.
I enjoyed this book and give it a 5-star rating as much for my personal nostalgia as for my respect for Tom Felton deciding that he might be able to help someone else by writing about his struggles. I wish him well.
