Recently on twitter, one of my fans said she (?) can’t wait for the second Elly book so she (?) can hang out with the Ellyans and in Elly again.

This took me by surprise for various reasons, one of them that Elly is a rebarbarized world, and it’s HARD to live in for most people, even the King.

On the other hand… On the other hand I spent most of my growing up years hiding in Elly, and still like to visit, weird and all. Mostly because it was different, very different from the world I was dealing with, and that made it restful. Different rules, different interaction, different everything. So it was fascinating.

Today we were talking about the houses in Harry Potter. I was, of course, an adult when I read Harry Potter, mostly because younger son ambushed me with it while I had a cold, by putting it on a table next to the chair where I was feeling sorry for myself and honking into tissues.

However, I moved into Harry Potter and Hogwarts. Partly because I moved right in with younger son. Younger son was 6 when he first read it, and not really but with part of his imagination, he moved fully in and half serious half in pretending expected that owl on his 11th birthday.

So, of course, we went along with him. We reminisced about our times in Hogwarts, and of course I was a Slitherin — I dare you! — and Dan likes to deny it, but of course he was a Hufflepuff, while my older son was all the way Raven Claw, obviously. We got the hats and the scarves, and we had the most fun playing at being Hogwart graduates.

I was reminded of that today as one of my fans says her daughter is a slitherin, by self definition.

And suddenly I was very flattered that people also want to spend time and live in my world. Not for real. No one is that crazy. But they want to live in there part time, and enjoy it from the safety of their reading chair and the perch of their imagination.

And …. and I want you to. For so many years it was my little world where I played, and which no one knew about. And now I’ve brought my friends in to play.

It makes it so much better.

Maybe worlds in which the author has hid/lived in are more hospitable to other people living in them?

I don’t know. I’m just glad mine is one of those.