A Bewitching Tale: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
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.
I have a confession to make. I've been living under a rock for the past decade (perhaps held prisoner by a twelve-foot troll? I'll never tell) and have neither read nor viewed the Harry Potter books or movies. I don't know what I was waiting for because Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone was a thoroughly enjoyable experience from start to finish. So much so, in fact, that I picked up the book and read all 300+ pages in one day.
Harry Potter sucked me in from the start, perhaps because it owes something to my favourite novel of all time, Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, with its plucky orphan hero who overcomes numerous obstacles and unfair disadvantages to win everyone over. In fact, the book borrows some of the most enjoyable aspects of classic children's literature and weaves them into an exciting and harrowing tale of sorcery and adventure. You'll note the crime solving capabilities of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys when Harry, Hermione, and Ron work to solve the mystery of the third-floor corridor. You'll be transported into magical realms of the imagination where people take the place of life-sized chess pieces, much like Lewis Carroll's Alice novels. The English Literature scholars amongst us will recognize Dickens' Gradgrind family in the descriptions of the eminently practical Dursley family ["He hurried to his car and set off for home, hoping he was imagining things, which he had never hoped before, because he didn't approve of imagination" (5)]. In the hands of a less-talented writer, the book might seem derivative; however, with Rowling's skill and sense of humour, all these elements combine to form a novel that adults and children alike will enjoy.
The novel tells the tale of an orphaned boy named Harry with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, who is raised by his aunt and uncle to be eminently normal (a "muggle," in Wizard-speak). For ten years, Harry is starved and berated, until the day mysterious letters with his name written in green ink begin arriving for him. Despite trying their hardest, Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia can't stop Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts, from finding Harry and setting him on the path to his destiny.
In his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Harry makes both friends (Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley) and enemies (Draco Malfoy) as he undergoes the standard childhood traumas (exams!) and thrills (Quiddich!). In fact, the novel owes a tip of its hat to the prototypical English school novel (think Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall for the tween crowd). But Harry discovers he is destined for something greater, a struggle only hinted at in the novel's concluding chapters.
While some scenes might prove frightening to small children, the novel deals with death in a hopeful way. Dumbledore, the supreme wizard and the book's voice of reason, drives home the point that, "to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure" (297). Based on the novel's many hints of things to be revealed as Harry ages, Harry has several great adventures yet to come.
Rating: 5 stars/5 stars
Recommended for ages 10 and up.
The details:
Rowling, J. K. (1997). Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone. New York: Scholastic.
