Title: Harry Potter!!Author: J.K. Rowling
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, and a bit of Romance
Description: Harry Potter is an extremely famous wizard, but he doesn't know it. He lives with his mean aunt and uncle and his extremely fat cousin. Until he goes away to Hogwarts, a well-known wizarding school. Thus begins the amazing adventure of Harry Potter.
My sister and I have collected most of the Harry Potter books on tape. Jim Dale is an amazing reader. Did you know he does more than 40 different voices in all the books? Anyway, we've listened to the tape so often I wanted to say a few things about characters, favorite parts, and general observations. There are so many things to fidn in the amazing world of Harry Potter.
Harry Potter. The main character. First of all, it's amazing how you can see the character development. We listened to the fourth book, then the second. I really saw a change in how Harry looks at the wizarding world and challenges ahead. At my school last year, there was a Harry vs. Twilight thing. Twilight argued Harry never grew up. I totally disagree. (Harry won, by the way. Twilight died out this year but Harry lives!!) In the first book, he's new to being a wizard and all the characters are being brought into the story. In the fourth, especially after the turning point, characters views really defined and the story really starts to shape up and get more serious. Although my sister and I often say Harry needs some anger management classes in the fifth book. Really Harry, shouting at your best friends isn't going to help.
It always amazing me in series how the author can tie events in the first book right into the last of all. Harry Potter is carefully planned out from beginning to end. In the fourth book. Voldemort explains all about his life for the past 13 years and it matches up exactly with everything that's happened to Harry. I guess that's the way all large series should be, but I really notice it in this one. In the sixth book, Harry hides a book under a bust of a wizard, and puts a tiara on top to make it more distinguishable. In the seventh book, the tiara turns out to be a major piece of the story. When I read the seventh, I instantly made the connection to the sixth.
I've noticed a plot pattern that holds for the first six books at least. The seventh is different. But it goes like this: Harry starts out at Dursleys. He goes away from Dursleys. He goes to school. Something strange happens at school. Suspense builds. Harry begins to figure out why strange things are happening. Climax is at the almost end of the book, where Harry must fight a large battle alone. The beginning of the battle sometimes includes companions to help him. Harry wins. School ends. Harry goes back to the Dursleys. The End. If you look at it like a plot line, there is almost no falling action, but goes straight from Climax to Conclusion, like this.
In the seventh book, there seems to be a million climaxes up to a HUGE one at the end.Snape and Malfoy. I feel so sorry for Malfoy. When you learn about the trouble he's going through in the sixth and seventh book, it makes you feel so sorry for him. Looking back, he's never shown much kindness to Harry Ron and Hermione (HRH), but they were always mean to him every chance they got too. Malfoy doesn't have many friends and his whole family is Dark Wizards. He doesn't have a lot of options for a great future. And he's a bit of a wimp. Snape is the same. Harry and Snape hate each other from the moment they meet, and Harry doesn't realize the truth until the very end. Harry always thinks Snape is behind every Dark thing at Hogwarts (Snape, or Malfoy, or some Death Eater) and he is ALWAYS wrong. You'd think Dumbledore would get impatient with him always jumping to conclusions. I recently read To Kill a Mockingbird, and one of the lessons was, you never truly know someone until you walk around in their skin. Harry never does this. Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater might be his motto. Snape is very complex and a really good character.
Sometimes Harry and Ron can be so misunderstanding. It's aggravating. When Harry can't understand Cho's feeling, Hermione explains, but Ron and Harry still don't get it. Again, in the third book they don't think about Hermione at all when they ignore her for a long time.
Why are Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle known by their last names, but almost no other characters are (except the teachers)? That's something thats been bugging me. Even Malfoy calls Crabbe 'Crabbe' and Goyle 'Goyle', even though they are his best friends. Harry doesn't call Hermione, 'Granger' or Ron 'Weasley'. There's too many Weasleys to call him that anyway. You could be calling Ron, Fred, George, Percy, or Ginny.
If you haven't read the seventh book, you may not want to read this part, if you are the kind of person who doesn't like the ending told to you before you read it. I have a friend who got really mad at someone else for telling her who died at the end of the book. It was a week long feud. Anyway.
Why do Ron and Hermione get married? They argue through all the books, and Harry often says he can't stand them bickering at each other all the time. Ron shows no interest in Hermione until she goes out with some other guy and same with Hermione. They aren't really great friends. Hermione seems like an outsider so often. In the third book, Ron and Harry don't talk to her for a long time because something that wasn't her fault. I can't remember his words exactly, but my dad said it was because that's how it was supposed to come out. I mean, who else could Ron and Hermione marry? If they married complete strangers that would be weird, right? They were meant to be a match even though they hate each other through most o f the books. In the end, every one's part of the Weasley family. Harry marries Ginny, and Hermione marries Ron. Hearing of the continued lives of these four people gets me curious. What happened to Fred and George? What about Hagrid? All the characters that were meaningful in the stories seem to have died or disappeared. It's a bit depressing when you think about it. Harry's kids have completely non-original names. Imagine being named Albus Severus Potter. Honestly, as Ron would say.
You may read beyond this point.
So those are our thoughts on the immensely popular, Harry Potter Series. Thank you. The End.
(I just hit spell check and all the character's names have big red underlining under them.)
