Harry Potter: Books 1 through
4.
By J.K. Rowling
A riveting and magical journey!
Like many others who are late
to reading the series, it took much persuading to pick up the first book,
and was riveted at page 1. The visuals created by this imaginative
author are quite wonderful, especially Hogwarts School for Wizardry, and
Hagrid and his beloved monsters.
These novels push the envelope
of magical adventures. Wonderfully freeing for the mind, all
boundaries (from our ‘normal’ muggle world) are totally removed as you
are immersed in the magical journey. Lots of fast moving action,
each new scene is entrancing and captivating.
Intertwined with big literative
themes like Good vs Evil, Magical vs ‘Normal’, Child vs Adult, many
parallels are woven into the stories. Rowling has an incredible grasp of
the power of the mind, demonstrated expertly in Prizoner of Azkaban by the
scene where Harry’s focused conjuring of a spell that eliminates his
most feared event.
Harry – you can’t help
liking his innocent awareness of his wizard’s gift, and his surprise at
each new facet. These books are clever, witty, and definitely not
just for children. Harry is such a part of the magical world, rising
to each adventure, each challenge, braving it out, growing from child to
adult and student to master wizard. Even if you’ve never enjoyed
fantasy – you will be totally enthralled by this incredible world that
JK Rowlings has created. Harry, Hogwarts, the magical world feels
alive and real, each surprising new event/character/monster feels an
engrained part of this world.
On top of all the imaginative
events, lots of humour has been woven into the stories - I laughed out
loud reading one of them at the airport. Some dark facets are woven
into books 1-4 but apparently 5-7 are darker. Definitely not a fairy
tale, more like a gripping riveting and fun magical adventure.
This author’s picks on the
best themes are the intertwining of magical and muggle worlds, and the
muggle fear of magic. The coolest things are owl letter delivery and
howlers (I’d love to be able to send these once in a while), the
marauders map (a very hi-tech wizards tool); and hippogriffs and blast
ended skrewts are the coolest and most imaginative monsters.
This author’s best pick is
novel 4, Prisoner of Azkaban, because of the way in which fear was faced.
Professor Lupin, teacher of ‘Defense Against The Dark Arts’ expertly
trains his fledgling wizards using ‘Boggarts’ to apparate their
greatest fears, and Harry’s use of the Patronus Charm in defense of his
greatest fear is gripping. In Harry’s fear of Dementors, the themes of
death, and his parents’ death are evident. Having his future self
come to help his present self out of a fearful spot (using the Patronus
charm) is wonderfully inventive.
Excellent reading in this
author’s opinion!!
Best link for more info on HP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter
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