I watched Pallavi, our Sunnyvale reporter and a Harry Potter fan, giggle several times over the days before the big midnight release of book number five. Moryt Milo, editor of our Willow Glen Times and Campbell Reporter lined up a late deadline and a photographer to get pictures of the Harry Potter queues and parties at the bookstores on the big night. To those of us who wondered if the whole Harry Potter thing is a bit carried away, Moryt kept claiming it was a phenomenon.

And the Monday after the big book release, I got it. Not the book. I understood that at essentially the same time people all over the world were excitied about the same thing at the same time. Something that's never happened before, a children's book no less, who's caught the world's imagination. Even the writer's own rags to riches story is taking on legendary proportions. And certainly children who wear glasses are feeling some kind of new status.

I can't help but wonder what this reaction is all about. I mean we are in the midst of some very troubling times.

Israelies and Palestinians are picking each other off; Dubya is hunting for weapons of mass destruction and Ben Ladin is plotting his next terrorist move; congress is haggling over tax cuts and prescription drugs and California is about to sink into some kind of financial toilet and the terrorist alert moves from orange to yellow and God knows what color, but Harry Potter for a few days was the big news worldwide.

The walk on the moon might be the one other thing that captured the whole world's imagination at the same time. But that was an unprecidented scientific feat. Harry Potter is simply a book about a kid and wizards.

Maybe there's something to consider here. Maybe somewhere in all those words and images of J. K. Rawlings alternative world is some kind of universal story. Joseph Campbell, renowned philosopher, said the world needs a new myth.

So here's a thought. Christians have been waiting for the Second Coming and Jews for the first coming. (I'm not sure what coming other religions are waiting for.) It's worth noting that in 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, they call God a Higher Power, HP for short. Now isn't it a coincidence that Harry Potter's initials are HP. Maybe we should send out missionaries to all parts of the world with all five Harry Potter books. We could make Saddam Hussein and his darling boys and Get Ben Ladin and George W and Arial Sharon and Yasser Arafat and all of the United States Congress read Harry Potter. Get us all on the "same page," so to speak.

Then everyone would be waiting for the next book. We'd all be talking about muggles and wizards.

Which brings up the materialistic side. Think what this would do for the world economy. There would be all the peripheral items, like little plastic Harry Potters to stick on our dashboards.

Okay, I'm being silly, but there is something going on that we don't understand and it's something global or maybe universal. I'll just bet sociologists are taking a look at this right now. Or they should be. Or we should be. Somebody should be.

Sandy Sims is the editor of The Sun. Contact her at 408.200.1055 or via email, ssims@svcn.com.