Are you a Harry Potter Fan?

With the 5th Harry Potter movie scheduled for release in 6 weeks and rumors buzzing about the 7th and final book in the series, I thought it would be a good time to post 10-year-old Sorcha's review of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the book that started it all. She includes some fun & interesting facts at the end, too!

"Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that when I was little I hated the Harry Potter books because I thought Harry wore toe socks (he doesn’t, by the way). But a few months ago I became one of the annoying Harry Potter fans who jabbers on about their latest fictional conspiracy theory ('I think Voldemort is really an evil cat who has set out to blow up the world using a concoction of shoelaces and necromancy!')But on to the point. The Harry Potter books are a series about a wizard-in-training and his friends. Together they try to stop the evil wizard Voldemort, who is trying to gain eternal life – and coming pretty close. The main character is a boy, but there are some really strong female characters such as Hermione Granger. One of Harry’s best friends, she always pays more attention in classes than Harry or their other best friend Ronald Weasely. Thus, she retains in her mind more usefull spells than the other two, and therefore they couldn’t do without her – she saves their lives on several occasions. Also, Hermione can stay calm and think about things until they make sense. Most of the time she turns out right, but Harry hardly ever listens to her. In the first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry first discovers that he’s a wizard, and that his mother and father didn’t die in a car crash – they were murdered by the evilist wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort. Harry narrowly missed death himself, but for some reason Voldemort’s curse bounced right off him and the evil wizard disappeared. Harry starts lessons at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and meets two new best friends – Hermione Granger and Ron Weasely. Together they discover that something dangerous is being kept at Hogwarts, and Voldemort (and perhaps their least favorite teacher, Severus Snape the potions master, too?) wants to get his hands on it. Together they break through perilous obsticales to save the Philosopher’s Stone from Voldemort.

Interesting Facts:

1) The book is called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in the U.S, and words like ‘cellotape’ and ‘jumper’ are changed to ‘Scotch tape’ and ‘sweater’.

2) Nicolas Flamel was a real person, and may have actually created a Philosopher’s Stone.

3) Another author once tried to sue Rowling for copyright violation – she used the word ‘muggle’ (a non-magical person) in her books, but with a completely different Defenition!

4) ‘Muggle’ was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003, with the defenition of ‘a person lacking in skill’.

5) There’s some dispute as to whether J.K. Rowling actually has a middle name or not."

What about you? Have you read all the books 10 times, or could you not care less? Does Harry Potter deserve the hype? Comment with your thoughts!