Oh look! A cute, funny children's book, just the right length, with a nicely constructed, self-contained plot and a good ending.

Well, obviously we want to turn it into a huge, bloated, ridiculously self-important seven-volume series. Nothing else would make sense.

(A-) 83% | Very Good
Notes: An effortless enchantment, it's lush with warmth and lore: seeded well, it casts a spell, and leaves you wanting more.

*Check out progress updates for detailed commentary:

Progress updates:

01/11/2020 - Preamble

(1) After nearly 9 months, I finally finished all five "A Song of Ice and Fire" audiobooks, I was going to run a poll on what I should listen to next but, c'mon, let's be real.
(2) I decided on the Stephen Fry version over Jim Dale simply because I can't abide by "Sorcerer's Stone." It's "Philosopher's Stone" for me or no stones at all!

01/12/2020 - 9%

(1) "People in cloaks! Mr. Dursley couldn't bear people who dressed in funny clothes – the getups you saw on young people!"
- With the movies, it's easy to forget that everyday wizard attire involves brightly colored cloaks and pointy hats.
(2) McGonagall: "There will be books written about Harry – every child in our world will know his name!"

01/13/2020 - 16%

(1) Harry gets Dudley's second room, which seems very much like the Room of Requirement. It's used to hide Dudley's disused and broken things, but now functions as a bedroom.
(2) If this snake was bred in captivity, and doesn't often speak to humans, how does it speak Portuguese? I suppose there's some Parseltongue iteration of Portuguese.

01/14/2020 - 23%

(1) Hagrid: "'The gold ones are Galleons,' he explained. 'Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle.'"
- It's interesting that despite UK decimalization, wizards still use a kind of £sd currency. They're sort of American that way: resisting metric.
(2) A knut is a wizard penny, I presume after King Cnut the Great.

01/15/2020 - 34%

(1) Harry: "What are Slytherin and Hufflepuff?"
Hagrid: "School houses. There's four. Everyone says Hufflepuff are a lot o' duffers, but–"
Harry: "I bet I'm in Hufflepuff," said Harry gloomily."
- Hufflepuff does sound like it's for stoners.
(2) Ron's both shocked and impressed that Harry said "Voldemort." Sort of like cursing, uttering his name.

01/16/2020 - 43%

(1) "Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head. 'GRYFFINDOR!' shouted the hat. Ron groaned."
- And thus begins our enemies-to-lovers romance.
(2) "Ickle" must be Britishism of Britishisms. I've only ever seen it in "Harry Potter" books.
(3) Hope my GIFs are well-received. Let me know if they ever get annoying.

01/17/2020 - 55%

(1) "The students all hated [Filch], and it was the dearest ambition of many to give Mrs. Norris a good kick."
- Well, as long as they don't actually kick the cat.
(2) Re: Football: "Ron couldn't see what was exciting about a game with only one ball where no one was allowed to fly."
- I dislike soccer for separate, non-magical, reasons.

01/18/2020 - 62%

(1) Ron saves Hermione from the troll. When it comes to Hermione, Harry's invariably placid, it's always fireworks with Ron.
(2) Before I knew better, I used to think "Hermione" was pronounced "hermy-won."
(3) "Ron was fascinated by the fifty pence. 'Weird!' he said, 'What a shape! This is money?'"
- I guess heptagons aren't common among wizards.

01/19/2020 - 69%

(1) The problem with the library's "restricted section" is that anyone can go there. Just keep them locked in a separate room, there must be hundreds of those available.
(2) Remembralls are about as useful as tying string around your finger.
(3) Harry: "How did you know – ?"
Dumbledore: "I don't need a cloak to become invisible."
- Totally pwned!

01/20/2020 - 73%

(1) “Ron and Hermione [were] playing chess. Chess was the only thing Hermione ever lost at, something Harry and Ron thought was very good for her.”
- I agree, it keeps her humble and open to suggestions.
- It’s good for Ron too, having something he’s best at.
(2) I love how openly biased teachers are toward their houses. It makes them more human.

01/21/2020 - 77%

(1) Ron and Neville fist fight Malfoy, Crabbe & Goyle. If you ask me, Malfoy's Ron's nemesis not Harry's.
(2) "Hermione... had started drawing up study schedules and color coding all her notes. Harry and Ron wouldn't have minded, but she kept nagging them to do the same."
- Pressuring idiosyncrasies is weird... like making friends dress like you.

01/22/2020 - 84%

(1) Filch: "Hang you by your wrists... I've got the chains still in my office, keep 'em well oiled in case they're ever needed."
- Not an awful idea, motives aside. Manacles can be handy.
(2) "Snape made them all nervous... while they tried to remember how to make a Forgetfulness potion."
- Trick question! Potion fumes might cause them to forget!

01/23/2020 - 90%

(1) The difference between J.K. Rowling and Rick Riordan is that Rowling plays the long game, building scenes toward the climax. Whereas Riordan plays in short bursts, ping-ponging from one mini-quest to another. Here, for example, Ron being best at chess, Hagrid giving Harry a flute, Peeves being scared of the Bloody Baron, etc., all pay-off at the climax.

01/24/2020 - 90%

(1) Dumbledore: "Call him Voldemort, Harry. Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."
- Wonder why Dumbledore doesn't give this advice to everyone? Surely people would listen.
(2) Lost in the narrative is that Harry kills a guy. Literally kills him with the power of love... it's a curious thing.

I read this long long ago to see how "evil" it was. You know, does it encourage children to become witches and wizards? Does reading Harry Potter cause evil?


After chopping off the heads of chickens, bats, a stray cat, and mixing it up in a cauldron pot, I dipped in my voo-doo doll and put a curse on my neighbor. (nothing too bad, just a case of incurable body lice) I then decided there is absoultely nothing wrong with Harry Potter!









*disclaimer for those who don't get my sarcasm: I never cut heads off any animal, ever. I open the door to let spiders and flies out of the house. So relax. (and let your kid read the damn book!)

Dove sono stato tutto questo tempo senza averlo letto?

Mi ha fatto sognare talmente tanto che, al momento di "Gli studenti di Hogwarts potranno portare un rospo; oppure una civetta; oppure un gatto" mi sono immaginato in viaggio verso la scuola di magia con la mia gatta cicciona sottobraccio.
Il fatto che non mi ricordassi solo vagamente del film (visto un paio di volte da piccolo) mi ha aiutato a farmi coinvolgere e spiazzare dai colpi di scena. L'ho amato.

While I do not support the author of this series, I still really enjoy this book and it has helped me through some of the hardest times of my life.

Here’s a link to support a transgender organization if you have the money to donate: https://www.transgenderlegal.org/supp...

Now onto some other stuff~

Number of times read as of March 2023: 6

Favorite moments/quotes from this book (spoiler warning in case you haven't got a chance to pick up this book yet):

"Yes, yes, it's all very sad, but get a grip on yourself, Hagrid"

"Once, Aunt Petunia, tired of Harry coming back from the barbers looking as though he hadn't been at all, had taken a pair of kitchen scissors and cut his hair so short he was almost bald except for his bangs, which she left 'to hide that horrible scar.'"

"...he'd gotten into terrible trouble for being found on the roof of the school kitchens. Dudley's gang had been chasing him as usual when, as much to Harry's surprise as anyone else's, there he was sitting on the chimney."

"...Dudley had already broken his new video camera, crashed his remote control airplane, and, first time out on his racing bike, knocked down old Mrs. Figg as she crossed Privet Drive on her crutches."

"The tub was full of what looked like dirty rags swimming in gray water.
'What's this?' he asked Aunt Petunia. Her lips tightened as they always did if he dared ask a question.
'Your new school uniform,' she said.
'Oh,' he said, 'I didn't realize it had to be so wet.'"

"Twenty four letters to Harry found their way into the house, rolled up and hidden inside each of the two dozen eggs that their very confused milkman had handed Aunt Petunia through the living room window."

"Hagrid took up two seats and sat knitting what looked like a canary-yellow circus tent."

"' Harry Potter ,' chorused the twins.
'Oh, him,' said Harry. 'I mean, yes, I am.'"

"'Oh, are you a prefect , Percy?' said one of the twins with an air of great surprise. 'You should have said something, we had no idea.'
'Hang on, I think I remember him saying something about it,' said the other twin. 'Once -"
'Or twice-'
'A minute-'
'All summer-'"

"'If I get one more owl telling me you've - you've blown up a toilet or-'
'Blown up a toilet? We've never blown up a toilet.'
'Great idea though, thanks, Mom.'"

"...their younger sister began to cry.
'Don't, Ginny, we'll send you loads of owls.'
'We'll send you a Hogwarts toilet seat.'"

"'How exactly do they sort us into house?' he asked Ron.
'Some sort of text, I think. Fred said it hurts a lot, but I think he was joking.'"

"Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words. And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

"Great Uncle Algie came round for dinner, and he was hanging me out of an upstairs window by the ankles when my Great Auntie Enid offered him a meringue and he accidentally let go. But I bounced- all the way down the garden and into the road. They were all really pleased"

"'Excuse me, Professor Flitwick, could I borrow Wood for a moment?'
Wood? thought Harry, bewildered; was Wood a cance she was going to use on him?"

"...never forget Wizard Baruffio, who said 's' instead of 'f' and found himself on the floor with a buffalo on his chest."

"But from that moment on, Hermione Granger became their friend. There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them."

"...the three of them were out in the freezing courtyard during break, and she had conjured them up a bright blue fire that could be carried around in a jam jar."

"'Send him off, red! Red card!'
'What are you talking about, Dean?' said Ron.
'Red card! said Dean. 'In soccer you get shown the red card and you're out of the game.'
'But this isn't soccer, Dean'"

"...the Weasley twins were punished for bewitching several snowballs so that they followed Quirrell around, bouncing off the back of his turban."

"'And you could ask your parents if they know who Flamel is,' said Ron. 'It'd be safe to ask them.'
'Very safe, as they're both dentists'"

"I supposed she thinks you don't forget your name. But we're not stupid - we know we're called Gred and Forge."

"They frog-marched Percy from the room, his arms pinned to his side by his sweater."

"I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks."

"Chess was the only thing Hermione ever lost at, something Harry and Ron thought was very good for her."

"'You're worth twelve of Malfoy,' Harry said. 'The Sorting Hat chose you for Gryffindor, didn't it? And where's Malfoy? In stinking Slytherin.'"

"And I gave Mmalfoy a black eye, and Neville tried to take on Crabbe and Goyle singled-handed!"

"Professor Flitwick called them one by one into his class to see if they could make a pineapple tapdance across a desk."

"The Weasley twins and Lee Jordan were ticling the tentacles of a giant squid, which was basking in the warm shallows."

"'So light a fire!' Harry choked.
'Yes - of course - but there's no wood!' Hermione cried, wringing her hands.
'HAVE YOU GONE MAD?' Ron bellowed. 'ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?'"

" Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, Two of us will help you, whichever you would find "

"Books! And cleverness! There are more important things - friendship and bravery"

"I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat."

"After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."

"'The truth,' Dumbledore sighed. 'It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution.'"

"If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark."

"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."

And since I'm trying to be transparent about problematic content in books, especially in books that I enjoy, this book has a problem with fatphobia. The way that fat people are described is awful and people's weight often become the butt of jokes.

Somehow, I managed to avoid the entire Harry Potter franchise my whole life, a fact I'm not proud of but am very happy about because I got to go into this book knowing absolutely nothing and it was spectacular.

I loved every moment of this book, it was fun and magical, and I got utterly lost in the Wizarding World as I learnt all about it alongside Harry. So clever, beautiful plot – this book series is iconic and for such good reason.

There’s not much else I could say that hasn’t already been said a million times before. This book series is a classic, and I am honoured to have read it. I am having the best time reading the books, I’ve already moved on to the rest of the series, and I cannot wait to be finished so that I can go back and reread them.

Update: 23/8/2018 My review is still hidden from view on GR. If it were listed on the community reviews, it would be the third highest voted 1 star review. In fact, since it has now been hidden for five years, maybe it would be the highest. It was the highest voted negative review prior to removing it from view.

Should I make a list of my reviews in order of how proud I am of them, this would be somewhere in the dark. However, that doesn't seem like the point. The fact that it had 140 likes and several hundred comments has to count for something. As far as I can see, I haven't broken the rules of engagement on GR in this review.

I've decided to enquire further as to whether I might be reinstated. I wonder if they ever do that?

The REVIEW.

Enough. I'm putting this one to bed. I so don't want to finish it.

‘Not enough sex’ was my first thought, but then we do get to this part where boys are discussing the length and capacities of their wands and I perked up for a moment until I realised that they were actually talking about wands.

You will say that this is a book for children and that sex has no part in it, but, I think Randall has it right, as usual:

n  n
XKCD's take on young boys

Now, I don’t know a whole lot about boys on the verge of pubescence, but I’m fairly sure they are more interested in willies than wands. Perhaps this book would have sold better if the author had regarded that piece of advice. (Note to self: check if anybody bought this book. Perhaps the author would appreciate my thoughts.)

---------------------------------------------


So, I keep getting hate comments for this review and I thought it would be nice if you all had a place you could get together and badmouth it. Announcing....

A new group:

People who hate my Harry Potter review....

Come this way:

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/4...

I'd be honoured if you joined. And I'm really sorry to all the people who wrote comments here which I misguidedly deleted.

----------------

20 August 2013: My Harry Potter review has been flagged and censored.

Given that the review itself has experienced its own form of peer judgement via the voting system and given that it has been up for a couple of years or more I wonder if this is part of the new Amazon way?

To quote the advice sent to me:

n
Your review of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was recently flagged as inappropriate. As the review is not about the book, it will not be shown on the community book page. For more information about our review policies, please see our review guidelines.
n

The review guidelines are here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/guide...

Momento histórico: acabo de terminar de leer por primera vez el libro de Harry Potter, como ustedes saben yo no los leí de niña pero nunca es tarde para
comenzar ❤️

EDIT NOTE in 2012: Since this apparently isn't obvious, I wrote the review years ago. I do not necessarily have those opinions now. I wouldn't know; I haven't read Harry Potter since. With a degree and five more birthdays behind me I do not necessarily agree with everything I said when I was seventeen years old. I'm happy to chat about the definition of literature with you, or what I think about the Harry Potter phenomenon now or whatever, but try and be civil and don't attack me right out of the gate.

EDIT NOTE in 2011: I've edited this review to take out some teenage arrogance, but the rest is as-is. A few years later and with a degree in hand, including modules in Children's Lit, I could probably write a better review, but people seem to like this one!


I really don't like Harry Potter. It's one of those little concealed but apparently not widely known facts about me, which shocks everyone when I say I love books and they're all, "yeah, rite, Harry Potter is so awesum rite?" and I say "...no, it really isn't." I confess: when I was eleven or twelve or so, I read them. I also read the Sabrina the Teenage Witch novels. I read everything and wasn't very discriminating about it. I did enjoy them. I continued to enjoy them until I got to Order of the Phoenix, and then I decided that all the hype aside, I just wasn't interested anymore. Bear in mind, then, for the rest of this "essay", that I have only read up to and including The Goblet of Fire.

Cue a few years of irritation while everyone insisted I must read the rest of the books, and how dare I prefer Tolkien and Ursula Le Guin (and later, Susan Cooper). I have really no objection to people reading the books and enjoying them, taking part in the fandom that surrounds them, dressing up in witchy costumes to go and pick up the most recently released volume at midnight. Have fun with that! As far as I'm concerned you're welcome to. I'm even quite happy to concede that yes, Harry Potter did get more people reading. Whether it got them reading literature or not is another matter: how many people, I wonder, have discovered a mania for reading after reading Harry Potter and then gone onto the likes of Crime and Punishment and War and Peace, or even Lord of the Rings? Not that many, I'll bet. I think they're probably reading Twilight and the like, more often than not. Not that it matters -- as long as people are reading.

But in any case, I. Don't. Have. To. Read. Them. Just because I like books, does not mean I like those books. And I detest it every time someone shoves them in my face as 'great literature'. I actually had to study Harry Potter, for my English Lit/Lang A Level (for those unfamiliar with our system: A Levels are exams you take when you're about eighteen, which among other things determine whether you can go to university). One of the questions we had to figure out how to answer was whether we thought Harry Potter was good literature, whether we thought it would stand the test of time, and how it was suited to the time it's currently in.

It was then that I figured out that, yeah, there are things wrong with Harry Potter beyond just the hype that was irritating me so much and the feeling that Rowling in no way matched up to the giants of fantasy and sci-fi, like Tolkien. I studied it alongside Tom Brown's Schooldays, by Thomas Hughes. Do note that I didn't like that book either. But it's a well written, well shaped, well considered book -- and it doesn't use the same cheap tricks as Harry Potter does. I'm not going to say much about that, since it's not a book I liked: if I'm going to compare/contrast, I'll compare with my favourite book that is also supposed to be for younger readers, Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising.

There's nothing wrong with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone being an amateur first novel. 'cause that's what it is. I'm sure many people's first novels don't even see the light of day, and yet Harry Potter somehow made it to a publisher's and was accepted. The thing is, people mostly refuse to recognise that and the cheap tricks J. K. Rowling uses. For example, her character's names. 'Draco Malfoy'. Mal, the French for bad, immediately obvious. 'Draco', suggesting dragon? Or perhaps 'draconian', which has negative connotations aplenty (not that I'd necessarily attribute those particular ones to Draco). Not very subtle, is it? 'Dumbledore'. Who doesn't get the image of a well-meaning, if strange, old man? 'Minerva', straight out of Greek myth: a goddess of knowledge. Gee, I wonder why Rowling chose that for a female teacher... 'Remus Lupin', 'Sirius Black', 'Mad-Eye Moody'... Do I even have to say anything?

And 'Harry Potter'. Nothing striking about that: perfectly ordinary, as names go, right?

Yeah. And that's the point. Harry Potter himself is not a real character -- certainly not at first. He's a cypher, a convenient space into which a kid can very easily insert himself or even herself. He's brave. Okay, generic hero characteristic. He has doubts. Again, the same. He has a Tragic Past. Don't we all? Or don't we all like to think we do? Look at the Mary Sues/self inserts people write in fandom -- so often they're people with incredibly dark, melodramatic pasts that they rise above. Harry Potter is a convenient place to insert yourself. The other characters are archetypes more than anything -- Hermione, the know it all girl; Ron, the loyal friend; Dumbledore, the mentor; Malfoy, the rival...

All of that is actually what makes Harry Potter a highly readable, enjoyable book, for young people and even adults. It's targeted very precisely toward the readership of today. Maybe that makes J. K. Rowling a better author than I might paint her as, that she can know her audience so well -- there's that view, I'm sure. But it's all very basic, and I tend to look on it as cheap tricks. The whole chapter, in the first book, about the Mirror of Erised -- how sad does it make you feel for Harry? It's sentimental, it's sad -- and it's meant to do that, very obviously. There's a whole chapter written just to enforce the love between the members of Harry Potter's family.

Susan Cooper does it in a single paragraph that makes me want to cry every single time I read it, coming after all the build up of guilt and pain in the relationship. "Bran went to [his father] and put his arm round his waist, and stood close. It was the first gesture of affection between the two that Will had ever seen. And wondering, loving surprise woke in Owen Davies's worn face as he looked down at the boy's white head, and the two stood there, waiting."

That paragraph does for me what Rowling's whole chapter cannot. It's so effective, actually, because Cooper spends a whole book leading up to it, showing us Owen and Bran's relationship. Rowling shows us Harry's parents, but in an unsubtle way that actually throws me out of it because I think, "Oh, yeah, this is the chapter in which we're supposed to feel very sorry for Harry."

There's also a very easy, blunt misdirection. You're supposed to hate Snape, supposed to believe he's the one to blame for everything, and at the end, you're supposed to be as surprised as Harry when it's Quirrel waiting there for him. At the age of eleven, I think I went right along with that, but when I reread it for A Level, I had to wince at how heavy-handed the misdirection was. I understand that later in the series Snape comes into it more, and I don't know whether the misdirection turns out to be not that misdirected when it comes down to the real truth: but in the first book, you're meant to believe it's Snape all along, and I don't think J. K. Rowling does a very good job of giving us clues that it's not actually Snape, because she's so busy blackening him to lead people astray.

It's also very black-and-white. Questions aren't raised, by this story -- and that's a thing I think is actually important in literature. Raise questions, discuss issues, end with a question. I don't know what to call stories that don't fit into that, really. I'm going to go with 'novels' as opposed to literature. Harry Potter is a novel. It's a story. I don't think it has any real lasting values. Susan Cooper's books, while also quite basic, discussing the Light and the Dark, do end with a question. If man is left on earth, to do as man will, will man be Light or Dark? The immortals leave earth, and say that the world -- for better or worse -- belongs to humans. Right now, a lot of people think the answer to that question would be 'worse'. But Harry Potter does not raise this question, does not raise any question, and does not answer one either. That's why I don't think it will last except perhaps as a phenomenon to be studied: the 'Potter mania' and what caused it.

That's why I don't like Rowling's writing. It's not particularly refined, it's unsubtle -- and that's okay, you know, I'm not saying you can't enjoy that, can't find it refreshing. I don't. I'm also not saying that 'novels' are bad -- they're good, they can provide valuable escapism, they can be incredibly rich fodder for the imagination, and I suspect Harry Potter is, for many children. But I don't call it literature, and I myself don't like it.

Note: the three star rating is because honestly, when I first read it, I did love it.

My original review was a comparison of sorts between Harry Potter and Twilight. However, this is stupid as the two are incomparable. Honestly, its not even worth discussing. Its not just that Twilight doesn't come close, it is the fact that Harry Potter transcends other similar works. Its peerless. To quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction: It "ain't the same fuckin' ballpark, it ain't the same league, it ain't even the same fuckin' sport."

There was a day when I thought I needed to defend Harry Potter, in the midst of the now dead Twilight craze, and you can see that below in what was my original review. It is a testament to the power of this series, that while various other franchises (Twilight, Hunger Games) have surged into popularity and then faded, Harry Potter remains unwaveringly strong after nineteen years. It is clear readers hold just as much admiration for these books as they always have. Time has not dimmed that.
I will, one day, write an essay about what these books mean to me. Eternal, this is the one that started it all.

Original review (circa 2010)
A note in regard to the on-going Potter vs Twilight debate:
Go ahed, tell me Twilight is better.
Tell me that James is scarier than Voldemort,
That the Cullens are a better family than the Weasly's
That Edward is cooler than Harry,
and Bella is smarter than Hermione.
Tell me that Stephenie Meyer is more talented than J.K. Rowling.

Go ahead,
I dare you.

Those who think the topic of Harry Potter or Twilight is worth debating and arguing over,
are utterly stupid.

Quite frankly-this book is amazing.

2024: Summer Break started but life threw me a curve ball last week. I did not as much pick up a book for four days. That’s life. Last weekend, my daughter and I started crafting together our summer movie list, which, of course, includes our annual viewing of favorite series like the original Star Wars trilogy, Mission Impossible, and Harry Potter. She is finishing seventh grade and first read Harry in kindergarten but decided that it was time for a re-read. Yesterday we started discussing key elements of the series and, she mentioned that maybe I should re-read the series as well. It’s been so many times but a good four years since I immersed myself in Harry’s magical world. If I ever needed an escape to Hogwarts in my adult life, it is now. So off we go and maybe some other family members will join us, and, maybe just maybe, I will actually get through book 5 this time around.

It is now 2023 and Harry Potter is now 25 years old. It is hard to fathom that days may be long but time passes quickly, and, yet, Harry has been around for my entire adult life. Time marches on. I hope he is just as beloved when my future grandchildren are old enough to read his story.

In 2020, I decided to reread the Harry Potter series again with friends in the Retro Chapter Chicks group. As adults we lead busy lives. There are infinite numbers of books published and with this lack of time, we need something magical, especially in the winter months when the sun doesn’t shine as much in the northern hemisphere. My solution to the winter doldrums was revisiting Harry Potter’s magical world even if for some of us like myself it is at least the 20th time reading the series. Magic has a way of brightening one’s day and in any saga you can pick up new intricacies with each read through. The best part will be the discussions afterward but after all these times there is nothing like hearing “You’re a Wizard, Harry”, and there is something magical in hearing those words as I began my reading year on New Year’s Day.

I have read Harry Potter more times than I have fingers and toes, and all four of my kids have read the entire series through twice. They have indulged in fan fiction and been sorted into houses on Pottermore. At this point, I have two Slytherins, two Ravenclaws, and my husband who is determined to take test again because he was inadvertently sorted into Hufflepuff. Of course, he claims it’s ok because Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson is supposedly also in Hufflepuff. That is how much Harry Potter has permeated society, to the point where the gulf between the books and fan fiction is at an all time low. Harry Potter was first published in 1998 and has been around my entire adult life. Imagine if it existed when I was my kids’ ages and had the luxury of reading for the first time at age five or six. By this point in my life, I would have the entire series memorized the way I can rattle off lines from the original Star Wars trilogy verbatim. Like Star Wars, Harry Potter is timeless. It was also written by an author who was unsure if it would be successful and initially only submitted the first book to be published. How wrong was J.K. Rowling when it came to betting on herself as more than twenty years later she has created an entire empire out of her franchise.

There is something about adolescence that places a child in a gap between childhood and adulthood that makes it a magical time in one’s life. Just yesterday my twelve-year-old daughter noted that she wants to be an adult because she’s too old to be a kid but too young to drive or do adult things. Point taken. What I have always loved about this first installment besides discovering about the magical world for the first time is how young Harry and his friends are. He notes at one point to Ron and Hermoine that Dumbledore gave them the tools to succeed and it was up to them to complete their tasks. Just as in real life an adolescent needs guidance, they are also capable of doing many things on their own, but they are oh so needy. Like Harry was when he didn’t know how to get to platform 9 3/4 or how to mount a broomstick or how any of the first year students still are in need of a helping hand of the prefects to show them the way as they navigate Hogwarts for the first time. Having kids in this age range allows for me to think wow, parents are allowing their eleven year old children to go away for school. They are entrusting others to help raise their children in this big, scary world that we live in. And the children in turn become independent at a younger than usual age, fostering layers upon layers of character development that Rowling employs even from this first book. It is little wonder that I was giddy to get started with the series again.

In this 2020 reading I have noticed yet again that Rowling has set the stage for events that will come later on in the series. They can be as mundane as the mention of Nicholas Flamel on the back of a chocolate frog card, or as crucial as Harry noting that Snape appears to be able to read minds. Knowing what we know about Snape and his character development makes me laugh at this line, only because I know of all the adventures that will occur and how Snape is either in the way or foiled by Harry in the end. I also noticed this time around the gulf between love and evil and that Harry’s mother’s love for him is something Voldemort can not understand. The stage is set for the interplays between Harry and Snape and the many iterations of Voldemort here in the first book, and one needs to read carefully so as not to miss anything. Reading this many times, I still managed to gain something new, and I think this time around, my key theme will be the characterization of every character, major and minor, and the nuances in dialogue between various personas. Harry having an aha moment about Hagrid might have been lost to me at age twenty but I get immediately and find myself chuckling a bit at age forty. As the books get longer and darker, these conversations which I once thought were fillers will become all the more important to the development of the plot, and I look forward to reaching them later in the series.

I am thankful that I have finally reached a stage where I am captivated by a plethora of books, not just one series like I was as a younger, less experienced reader or when I had little time for hefty books when I had young children in the house. I am glad that J.K. Rowling created this world so that kids can foster a love of reading and become lifelong readers. For that, nineteen years later, I can still turn to Harry in times of need and be grateful that Harry, Ron, and Hermoine will always be there for readers in need of an escape from the vagaries of everyday life. I recently bought the series for myself so I can turn to this ultimate comfort read in times of need and not be reliant upon the library for my copy. Being able to read a whole book in a day or favorite passages is pure magic to say the least. So in 2020 I will be undertaking seven years of magic again. The kids are at a stage when they read from the teen section of the library and I find myself craving children’s books. Needless to say I need some magic in my life as I read about other teenagers and adolescents as a means of escaping the everyday stress that comes with raising kids that age of my own. It should be a fun journey and now that I have book 1 under my belt again, I look forward to spending a good chunk of my 2020 reading year inside of Hogwarts.

As always, 5 stars

On my list of reasons why my daughters are the bestest thing to ever happen to me, Number 14,577 is that they gave me, at 41 years old, the perfect excuse to revisit the Harry Potter series.

When my oldest angel told me she wanted to start reading the Harry Potter books, I couldn’t have been happier. As I was collecting all seven volumes off the shelf to bring up to her room, I started feeling nostalgic for the whole Hogwarts gang, and I realized that I’d never done more than a perfunctory review of this first volume. I figured it was high time to rectify that oversight.

Harry deserves it.

However, with over a million ratings, and almost two reviews for every day I’ve been alive, I think I can dispense with any plot distillation or character profiles. It has all been eloquently said before. Therefore, I just want to briefly express what I see as the essential magic at the heart of the series, and why I think it has resonated so strongly with so many people.

Here goes...

Only rarely does a story come along that can so completely wrap you up in a warm blanket of contentment and good feelings. One that can hold at bay, even if only for precious moments, the nasty brutishness of what often passes for daily life. These stories do that.

It’s an escape into a world of optimism, honor, and hope, where things always look hopeful and anything is possible. Who wouldn't want to hang around in a place like that, especially when it is decorated with sorting hats, kindly giants, magic wands and Quidditch.

Granted...no aspect of the story is revolutionary, or even particularly noteworthy, from the standpoint of blazing new trails within the fantasy genre. It isn’t great literature, and nothing about its technical merits makes it befitting of even a fraction of its unprecedented success.

Fine...acknowledged. And? So what!

The virtue of this story is the postive feelings it conjures in its readers. Harry’s story is something that radiates acceptance, inclusion, and friendship. It invokes a sense of belonging. Inside these pages, you can find the impetus to see the better angels of humanity’s nature, and feel just a little better about the world around you.

How is that not worthy of praise?

As for Harry himself, he’s just a good kid. The quintessential everyman who makes good. A loving boy with a clear head on his shoulders and a caring heart that pumps affection for the world around him. He’s someone you can’t help but like.

He’s not perfect. He makes mistakes, he’s occasionally short sighted, and I know many of us wish he would stick up for himself a little more. Maybe reduce his aunt and uncle to a pair of fatty stains on the carpet, or give Dudley an atomic wedgie until his skivvies scrape against his pancreas.

But that’s not Harry. He’s a better person than that. That’s why we love him.

Maybe all of the above is a bit much. Like I said, I was feeling nostalgic and maybe the gush got a tad away from me. Let’s just say that these stories are perfect comfort food and reading them will make you happy.

I’ll certainly settle for that.

As for the rating, I Initially only gave this first volume 3 stars, and I’m not going to change that now. As much as I love the series as a whole, I don’t think it reaches stratospheric heights until Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Still, this is where it all began. As such, it should be read and savored knowing that it only gets better.

3.0 stars. Highly Recommended.