Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone is the first book in the Harry Potter series of novels by JK Rowling.
In the first book we meet Harry Potter in the summer holidays before he goes to secondary school. He lives with his Uncle and Aunt who dislike him intensely and make him live in a cupboard under the stairs. He finds out he is a wizard and has been enrolled at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The book follows Harry’s adventures in year 7 at his exciting and strange new school.
Harry owns a Snowy Owl called Hedwig
The first Harry Potter book is a much slimmer volume than the rest of the series and as such is a good book introduction to longer novels for enthusiastic 10 and 11 year old readers who like fantasy stories. The book is full of humour and incident and the pace is kept high throughout. I particularly enjoy the relationship that Harry has with his revolting Uncle and Aunt and their slug of a son, Dudley.
I love the language of the Harry Potter books. JK Rowling is brilliant at making up words, whether it’s the names of the Hogwarts Houses – you just know that you don’t want to be put in Slytherin just from the name, or the names of the spells. Expeliarmus!
If your whole experience of Harry Potter is from watching the movies and playing with the computer games, I urge you to pick up Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. You won’t be disappointed.
Image by Chris & Laura Pawluk under a Creative Commons Licence from Flickr