Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

The wizarding world woven by Rowling in her first volume of the Harry Potter series is inhabited primarily by characters who find its wonders unremarkable. Desensitized to what denizens of the non-magical, “Muggle” world would consider monumental powers and strangely capricious institutions, this parallel magical society is opened to orphan Harry Potter when he receives an invitation to attend Hogwarts, its premier boarding school, freeing him from the comically harsh home life of his aunt and uncle, the Durselys. Potter quickly discovers that he is a celebrity in this insular community, and in short order rejects false friends, finds true ones, and sets about uncovering a mystery which will lead him to confront the one who orphaned him. Keeping a quick pace, Rowling presents Potter as a character riddled with self-doubt as a result of his punishing upbringing at the hands of the Dursleys, certain that around each corner is his expulsion. However, life under such oppression has readied him to break the rules when he sees a need to, and the world of magic seems far more amenable to a virtuous rule-breaker than his adoptive family ever was. From the use of Lumos, the disjointed typeface used on chapter headings, to GrandPré’s cartoonish pastel illustrations to the occasional burst of nonsequitur whimsy on the part of otherwise staid but friendly adults, Harry Potter is designed to appeal to younger readers superficially, while drawing them on to more sophisticated storytelling than such surface silliness might suggest.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling; illus. by Mary GrandPré
Middle School
Perfection Learning Pre Bind
312 pp.
Published 1999
ISBN 978-0780797086
$20.25
Fantasy

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