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Harry
Potter reviews
J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone; illus. by
Mary Grandpré
Levine/Scholastic
Reviewed 1/99
Orphaned Harry Potter has been living a dog’s life with his
horrible relatives. He sleeps in the broom cupboard under the stairs
and is treated as a slave by his aunt and uncle. On his eleventh
birthday, mysterious missives begin arriving for him, culminating
eventually in the arrival of a giant named Hagrid, who has come
to escort him to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Harry learns that his parents died saving him from an evil sorcerer
and that he himself is destined to be a wizard of great power. Harry’s
astonished introduction to the life of wizardry starts with his
purchase, under Hagrid’s guidance, of all the tools of an
aspiring sorcerer: wand, robes, cauldron, broomstick, owl. Hogwarts
is the typical British public school, with much emphasis placed
on games and the honor of the Houses. Harry’s house is Gryffindor,
the time-honored rival of Slytherin: he becomes a star at Quidditch,
an extremely complicated game played with four different balls while
the whole team swoops about on broomsticks. He studies Herbology,
the History of Magic, Charms, Potions, the Dark Arts, and other
arcane subjects, all the while getting closer to his destiny and
the secret of the sorcerer’s stone. He makes friends (and
enemies), goes through dangerous and exciting adventures, and justifies
the hopeful predictions about him. The light-hearted caper travels
through the territory owned by the late Roald Dahl, especially in
the treatment of the bad guys — they are uniformly as unshadedly
awful as possible —but the tone is a great deal more affectionate.
A charming and readable romp with a most sympathetic hero and filled
with delightful magic details. ann a.
flowers
J. K. Rowling Harry Potter
and the Chamber of Secrets; illus. by Mary Grandpré
Scholastic/Levine
Reviewed 7/99
In this sequel to the phenomenally popular Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer’s Stone), Harry returns to Hogwarts School
of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year after a miserable
summer with his Muggle (nonmagical) relatives. Once again, Harry’s
school experiences are colored by encounters with genial ghosts
and antagonistic teachers, by the rivalry between good-guy Gryffindor
House and slimy Slytherin House, and by an ominous mystery to be
solved involving Harry’s archenemy, the dark sorcerer Lord
Voldemort. Once again, the attraction of Rowling’s traditional
British school story is magnified tenfold by the fantasy elements
superimposed upon it. The atmosphere Rowling creates is unique;
the story whizzes along; Harry is an unassuming and completely sympathetic
hero. But, truth to tell, you may feel as if you’ve read it
all before. Rowling clearly hit on a winning formula with the first
Harry Potter book; the second book — though still great fun
— feels a tad, well, formulaic. martha
v. parravano
J. K. Rowling Harry Potter
and the Prisoner of Azkaban; illus. by Mary Grandpré
Levine/Scholastic
Reviewed 11/99
All current reviews of Harry Potter books should probably be addressed
to some future audience for whom Harry is book rather than phenomenon;
at the moment, reviews seem superfluous. For the record, then, O
future reader, this latest installment in Harry’s saga is
quite a good book. The basics remain the same: it’s another
year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (where there’s
perforce a new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher); it’s
still Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, Gryffindor House, and the headmaster
versus Professor Snape, Draco Malfoy and his Slytherin goons, Lord
Voldemort, and various other forces of darkness. But all the elements
that make the formula work are heightened here. The characters are
particularly interesting, especially the aforementioned new teacher,
Professor Lupin, a man with a howling secret; Sirius Black, a feared,
possibly mad, escaped prisoner who is believed to have betrayed
Harry’s parents and is now said to be after Harry; and Harry
himself, who in facing the reality of his parents’ violent
deaths becomes a stronger person — and a more complex hero.
The Quidditch action is the best yet; the Hogwarts classes (Care
of Magical Creatures, Divination, and Potions) are inventive and
entertaining; and Rowling pulls off a nifty bit of time manipulation
in the book’s exciting climax. There’s hope, too, for
a lessening in the power Harry’s Muggle relatives seem to
have over him — and so a probability that we won’t have
to endure quite so much of these tiresomely one-dimensional characters
in the future. Speaking of which . . . have a hot
butterbeer, future reader, and enjoy. martha
v. parravano
J. K. Rowling Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire; illus. by Mary Grandpré
Scholastic/Levine
Reviewed 11/00
The fourth book in the Harry Potter phenomenon, at 734 pages, is
what you call a wallow—one that some will find wide-ranging,
compellingly written, and absorbing; others, long, rambling, and
tortuously fraught with adverbs (“‘What sort of objects
are Portkeys?’ said Harry curiously”). Year Four at
Hogwarts finds Harry enjoined as the surprising fourth contestant
in the Triwizard Tournament — “a friendly competition
between the three largest European schools of wizardry” —
during which he bests a dragon, rescues Ron from merpeople, and
finds his way through a maze that, unbeknownst to Dumbledore and
the powers of good, leads to the dark wizard Voldemort and to the
death of one of the other contestants. Before and in between the
book’s major action (the tournament is not announced until
page 186, and Harry’s involvement not until page 271), Rowling
explores her major theme of good vs. evil and her minor themes of
the value of loyalty and moral courage and the evils of yellow journalism,
oppression, and bigotry. We find out, for instance, that Hagrid
is not just oversized but part-giant, which is considered a shameful
heritage; we see Hermione being taunted as a “mudblood”
for her mixed Muggle-wizard parentage. Rowling’s emphasis
here is much less on school life (not a single inter-house Quidditch
match!) and much more on the wider wizard world and, simultaneously,
on Harry’s more narrow, personal world, as he has his first
fight with Ron and asks a girl to his first dance. But on the whole
the emotional impact is disappointingly slight. The death of the
Hogwarts student causes nary a lift of the reader’s eyebrow;
the complicated explanation for Voldemort’s infiltration of
Hogwarts is fairly preposterous and impossible to work out from
the clues given. The characterization, as well, seems to be getting
thinner, with Dumbledore in particular reduced to a caricature of
geniality. As a transitional book, however, Goblet of Fire
does its job — thoroughly if facilely — and raises some
tantalizing questions: Will Snape really turn out to be one of the
good guys? What’s the connection between Harry’s and
Voldemort’s wands, between Harry and Voldemort himself? When
Harry tells his tale of Voldemort’s return, what does the
fleeting gleam of triumph in Dumbledore’s eyes signify? Stay
tuned, Pottermaniacs, for Year Five. martha
v. parravano
J. K. Rowling Harry Potter
and the Order of the Phoenix; illus. by Mary GrandPré
Levine/Scholastic
Reviewed 9/03
This review is much like the proverbial tree falling in an uninhabited
forest: unlikely to make a sound. But for the record, HP5 is the
best in the series since Azkaban, and far superior to the
turgid HP4. With Rowling once again following the formula of giving
Harry’s day-to-day troubles and preoccupations the same weight
as the larger battle of good vs. evil, Harry, now a sullen fifteen,
finds himself in the role of outsider. The adult wizards in the
Order of the Phoenix prepare for the return of Voldemort without
him; at Hogwarts, he is ignored by Dumbledore, banned from Quidditch,
and—thanks to slanted press coverage — generally regarded
as a liar and a “weirdo.” A new Defense Against the
Dark Arts teacher, backed by a Ministry of Magic in Voldemort-denial,
begins taking over Hogwarts one repressive educational decree at
a time, providing Rowling with the opportunity for some sharp-edged
satire. This is one of the funniest of the books, with comic set
pieces starring Uncle Vernon and Hagrid, and with Fred and George
Weasley outdoing themselves in wickedly funny asides. But it is
also one of the most unpleasantly aggressive: adults snarl at one
another; Slytherins and Gryffindors seem perpetually to be insulting
each other, and even come to blows. The plot doesn’t bear
close scrutiny, and the climactic confrontation between “Dumbledore’s
Army” (a group of Hogwarts students led by Harry) and a horde
of Death Eaters is a banal shoot-’em-up scene with a little
magic thrown in. The concluding wrap-up, though, in which Dumbledore
explains it all to Harry (and to us), contains a revelation regarding
Neville Longbottom that should keep fans fizzing with wild surmise
until the next installment. HP5 remains a highly passive reading
experience, with all the work done by the author and none required
of the reader (viz. those omnipresent, ambiguity-leaching adverbs:
“‘I’m not staying behind!’ said Hermione
furiously”). But tally the book’s strengths and weaknesses
as you may, the fact remains that Rowling has once again created
a fully-fledged world, and for the experience of being there with
Harry, HP5 can’t be beat. martha
v. parravano
J. K. Rowling Harry Potter
and the Half-Blood Prince; illus. by Mary GrandPré
Levine/Scholastic
Reviewed 9/05
This sixth Harry Potter will wow the series’ many
fans — Rowling delivers the likable characters and thrilling
situations that have made the series so popular, handily weaving
in plots begun in earlier books and returning to comic staples of
wizard school life while providing fresh novelties. Connoisseurs
will note that Rowling’s real attention is focused on setting
up Harry’s final showdown with Lord Voldemort: Dumbledore’s
private Pensieve tutorials with Harry, in which the two sift through
various characters’ memories about the Dark Lord’s history,
searching for the means to defeat him, are the main thrust of the
book but will pay off fully only in the last volume. Even so, there’s
plenty of engaging mystery and suspense here: the title character,
the Half-Blood Prince, occluded for most of the book as merely the
author of some helpful notes in Harry’s potions text, bursts
into startling prominence by the end. Harry himself, grown more
independent, decisive, and “fanciable,” comes of age,
committing himself by his own choice to defeating Voldemort and
accepting that former protectors like his parents and Dumbledore
(and even the Dursleys) no longer stand between him and danger.
Old animosities against Snape, now the Defense Against the Dark
Arts teacher (whose twisted loyalties become even more opaque),
and Draco Malfoy, the newest Death Eater recruit, continue unabated
and crescendo into an epochal betrayal at the close, brilliantly
conjured by Rowling. In the war against Voldemort, Snape may prove
to be the linchpin just as much as Harry, but to find out for sure,
readers will have to wait for the ultimate Harry, book
seven. Anita L. Burkam
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