Exploring Harry Potter

The Harry Potter books are fantastic! Just as I did with the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings, whenever I find a series I absolutely adore I always like to find analysis books regrading that series. Most of the analysis books I've read on serieses that I've liked, such as Paul F. Ford's Companion to Narnia, have been very good. This is one such book. At the beggining I learned some very interesting information, such as the fact that due mainly to the influence of Harry Potter, sales of children's books in general have gone up 24%! I love to read an analysis book and think to myself "Yup, I realized that." or "Wow, how interesting!" or, "I hadn't thought about that but it makes pefect sense." This book is highly recommended. The reason I did not give it five stars is that's what I would have given the Harry Potter books themselves and no analysis book, no matter how good can take the place of the series itself.

Umm, what about us? I read the reviews here and most of themcame from adults. I really liked this book. It helped me understandHarry Potter better and the connections really gave you something tothink about. You older people may not have liked this book, but theonly good reviews came from kids. No book is trash. That's what I'velearned. And I want to be an author when I grow up. Those who havealready grown up sometimes don't give books a chance. I'll admit- ittook me two weeks to get into Redwall. But what about the goodqualities of this book? There's a complete list of every singlecharacter in the first three books. I must have skipped over orforgotten lots of them! There are great discussion questions- I nowhave ideas for my website. And what about the vocabulary at the end ofeach chapter? I now know a lot more words than I did before. Adultswho have read this may have already known them. But kids haven'tlearned everything yet. And I like to learn.

I absolutely loved this book! It is great I'd recommend it to anyone and everyone. E-mail me [email protected] if you want.

Well, it seems like I am in the minority here. I was impressed by this book for a number of reasons. It is extremely difficult to to write an overview of a series of books BEFORE those books have all been published. Elizabeth Schafer has put it together before it was all there! That takes a lot of insight. She has acknowledged the shortcomings of exploring a work in progress and still has managed to give adults and mature child readers an intelligent introduction to literary criticism and analysis. The book also helps readers review details that otherwise would be forgotten because of the delay between Potter volumes. I look forward to future editions of this sourcebook.

This was a really good book! The discussion topics included for each chapter of the #1-3 books kept my friends and me talking for hours! The explaining of the greek gods and other parts of the stories was most intringing. This book is a excellent buy for young and old Harry fans.