What Was It Like Reading Harry Potter for the First Time?

I was eight years old and it was raining outside. My mum put the book in my hands and said nothing — just went back to the kitchen. I didn't come out until dinner. By that point I had already missed breakfast. I remember the specific physical feeling of not wanting the chapter to end, turning the page anyway, and then immediately not wanting that chapter to end either. That sensation — that particular helpless forward momentum — I've spent twenty years chasing it in other books. Nothing has quite matched it.

— The Wibbly Editor