Always have faith in yourself. Be true to your friends. And never repot a mandrake plant without wearing earmuffs (their screams are fatal, you know). As any Harry Potter fan knows, you don't need a wand to learn life's most important lessons.

Harry may have been born a wizard, but his journey through adolescence is purely human. For kids, he's a trusted companion during that awkward, angst-ridden adventure called growing up. For grown-ups, his escapades offer the chance to feel like a kid again. And that is J.K. Rowling's greatest trick: remembering the thrills, and fears, of being young.

Starting with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Rowling's six books have been translated into over 60 languages, spawned a series of blockbusting movies and transmogrified a jobless single mom into an international celebrity. But Rowling's real triumph is getting millions of book-shy muggles to start reading again. Her stories can be as sweet as bedtime tales and as dark as nightmares, always alive with sparkle, wit and — above all — fun.

Harry and his friends invite readers into Hogwarts, but it's Rowling's writing that keeps them spellbound. Now she's working on the seventh book — the final one, she says — and fans can't wait to see how it all ends. In a time when everything comes to us in bits and bytes, Rowling has made storytelling cool again. And that is something truly magical.