After his parents are killed when he is only one year old, Harry Potter spends ten years of his life growing up with his aunt, uncle, and cousin. He is treated abysmally by them in the hope that his “abnormality” will not surface.

Despite his aunt and uncle’s best efforts, on Harry’s eleventh birthday, Hagrid turns up and reveals all. Harry is stunned to be told that not only is he a wizard, but that he is famous. He also finds out about the lies he has been told by his aunt and uncle, and all of the secrets they have kept from him.

Harry goes off to a wizard school to learn all about magic. While there, he makes some friends, some enemies, and eventually comes face to face with the dark wizard who killed his parents.

He learns that it will take far more than just studying to make it in the wizarding world. As one of his friends says “Books! And cleverness! There are more important things”.

With everything that happens, Harry’s life will certainly never be the same again.

Kids and adults alike. There is magic for the kids, and there is a good old-fashioned mystery for the adults.

The detailed descriptions of the scenes. It makes it so easy to see the world that Harry is living in.

When an author is creating their own fictional world, the hardest thing is to get the reader to actually see it. It’s fine telling us about some imaginary creature we’ve never heard of before, but the real skill is making the reader see every aspect of that creature and knowing why we should fear it or like it.

The way the Great Hall is described at various times is truly magical. The floating jack o’laterns at Halloween, the massive Christmas trees, even the bewitched ceiling.

The actual Philosopher’s Stone and first year at school arcs felt rushed.

It takes about the first 35% of the book just for Harry to get to Hogwarts. This is an important part of the series as it lays the foundations of who Harry is, who his family are, and what his life has been like growing up. This takes up about the right amount of space in terms of number of pages.

However, it means that his entire first school year is covered in about two hundred pages. In that time we are introduced to all of the major characters and teachers, and have the entire Philosopher’s Stone arc of the story. Not to mention the various night time wanderings about the castle, the celebration of a couple of holidays, a scary late night detention and live coverage of a couple of Quidditch matches.

I know the book is primarily aimed at the children/early teens age group and that this is only the first of seven books, but it could have done with being another fifty or sixty pages long. That way the reader could have seen a little more of Hogwarts, been able to take a breather between the action scenes, and not feel as though they have just done a whistle-stop tour in a Gringotts Bank cart.

Jump straight in to the second book.

I enjoyed the story, and it very much appealed to the child in me.

J K Rowling OBE. She was born in Yate, Gloucestershire, England in 1965. She graduated from University of Exeter in 1986 with a BA in French and Classics.

Harry Potter has become the best-selling book series in history, and the films have become the highest-grossing film series ever.

From her initial concept of Harry Potter in 1990, until the publication of Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone in 1997, JK had survived on state benefits. She is now the UK’s best-selling living author with sales in excess of £238 million. In 2008, she was the twelfth richest woman in the UK.

It’s a great read that will appeal to anyone and there are enough twists, turns and red herrings in the book to keep most adults entertained.

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Created Jan 07, 2015 at 9:11am • Submit your own review...