Saturday, April 26, 2014

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

First Line: “Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways.”

Romance: 0/5

Profanity: 0/5

Violence: 2/5

Parental concerns: There is use of magic. There is a lot of yelling at students by teachers (no profanity is used). There is use of words like Blimey and one boy is said to have sworn. A boy has a girlfriend, but they don’t spend much time together—that we read. Another boy has a crush on a girl his age, but it’s never referenced as such. There are descriptions which may conjure creepy images.

Recommended age: 10+

“Harry Potter is lucky to reach the age of thirteen, since he has already survived the murderous attacks of the feared Dark Lord on more than one occasion. But his hopes for a quiet term concentrating on Quidditch are dashed when a maniacal mass-murderer escapes from Azkaban, pursued by the soul-sucking Dementors who guard the prison. It’s assumed that Hogwarts is the safest place for Harry to be. But is it a coincidence that he can feel eyes watching him in the dark, and should he be taking Professor Trelawney’s ghoulish predictions seriously?” – GoodReads

It’s been the best Harry Potter book yet, no doubt about it. Superb characters, an intricate and mysterious plot, and laugh-out-loud hilarity combined with Rowling’s spellbinding writing style that keeps her readers turning pages. To tell the truth, there’s very little that I can say that’s wrong with this book. Pretty much all I can say is—I’ve joined the Harry Potter fandom for real now. The Prisoner of Azkaban left me connected to Harry, Ron, and Hermione (in whom I see a lot of myself . . .) like neither of the other books did before, and its only fault—at which point I thought, “Oh, blast, I’m going to have to give it a four and a half again. . . .”—was Rowling’s tendency to drop into telling rather than showing during her most intense scenes. But what the book lost in that, it made up for with its spectacular twists and surprises. If The Goblet of Fire is better than The Prisoner of Azkaban, I’m going to be over-awed.

Rating:
Harry Potter 3 rating

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