The Amtrak ride from my hometown to Chicago takes four hours. In that time, I could imagine a fictional world, create characters to live in it and develop a storyline that would ultimately make me a billionaire author and mine a household name.

Okay, probably not.

But for J.K. Rowling, a four hour train ride, without a pen and paper, helped her think-up the story of Harry Potter, an 11-year-old orphan off to his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

My personal journey in the Wizarding World began in my sixth grade literature class. Despite controversies surrounding the books about witchcraft and demonic messages, my Catholic middle school decided to teach the books.

We listened to Harry on tape during class, with British narration in our ears and books in our laps to follow along. I’m glad my teachers recognized the potential Harry Potter had to make reading fun for us, to hook us into a story line, feed our imaginations and make us feel like part of a community.

Instead of being told the books were full of darkness and satanic themes, I was introduced to a series and a world that I and my generation have grown up with and been influenced by for the better.

Rowling has now penned all seven books of her Harry Potter series, which have been translated into 67 languages, turned into Blockbuster hits and even inspired The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (a Universal Studios Theme Park, expected by its creators to open next year).

But Harry Potter did more than create record statistics.

For kids living under the impression that everything you need to know is available on the Internet, ‘the boy who lived’ made reading cool again.

And not only is it cool to read, it’s cool to read books larger than some of my college textbooks; to wait in line outside the local bookstore to snatch up the next story of the series at midnight of its release date; to lock yourself in your bedroom and read the book in one sitting, and then multiple times over again.

And once you’ve committed to Harry and his fight against ‘He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named’, there’s no turning back; readers are hooked. They’ve entered a friendship of sorts.

Twelve years after the first edition printing of the first book of the series, the movie of the sixth book, ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,’ has been released in theatres. Twelve years. For most undergraduate students at the University, that’s half a lifetime. And there’s still one more movie to be made, at least.