Harry Potter (Books One Through Three)

Harry Potter (Books One through Three)

            Harry Potter has lived under the stairs for eleven years and before he gets a mysterious letter in the mail via an owl, he’s understood life to be quite miserable since growing up with his Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and Cousin Dudley outside London. In the first novel of the widely popular Harry Potter series, Harry befriends an ogre-ly giant, stumbles across a three headed dog and becomes the star seeker in a silly game called Quidditch and learns he’s a wizard. In a world where he feels at home, Harry surrounds himself with witches, wizards, goblins and dwarfs in the first of the seven book mega franchise. In the first three stories of the hit series, Harry goes on a quest to find the Sorcerer’s Stone, awaken and kill the beast known as a Basilisk and learn that his godfather also known as the Prisoner of Azkaban are on a journey to defeat and ultimately kill the dark force known as (only say it in a whisper) Voldemort.    

            There’s no questioning that Harry Potter has not only changed the lives of millions of children (starting as young as eight years old) but has changed the world. We muggles, as J.K Rowling so eloquently describes us have literally become obsessed with the world of the Harry Potter characters and their pets, wands and spells (everyone from Harry and his two best friends and the infamous professors like Severus Snape and Hagrid). Don’t tell me you haven’t assigned yourself to one of the four dorms, I took the quiz I belong in Gryffindor.

            One of the major reasons why children fell in love with these novels was the fact they were growing up with characters that were close in age to the reader. Although we understand there are not two worlds (the muggle world and the magic world), I think the relation between the age of the characters and the readers is one of the biggest draws of the series. Knowing a book was to be released each year or two, children couldn’t wait to see and read what had gone on in the life of Harry, Hermione and Ron while the readers themselves were growing up. While most of the stories revolve around a journey or a quest to ultimately meet up with Voldemort, most of the story centers on tween related issues like friendship, bullying, first crushes and learning the importance between being good and evil.

           

(images via pinterest)