Harry Potter - Series Comments and Recommendations!

I definitely recommend trying to have a go at this ne in Latin. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll learn some exciting new words! If this series motivated kids to get up and read, imagine what it could do if it were on the compulsory Latin syllabus.

We may have a whole generation of Classics trained, pagan tudents whose first recollections of Latin are not "amo amas amat" or "cerberus est canis" but "Puer qui vixit!" and "Dominus et Domina Dursley".

Harry Potter, for me, was an enjoyable series and I don't regret at all reading it. It was a fast read despite the heftiness of some of the tomes. However, I don't think it will be the kind of series I will go back to over and over.

It started off rather tamely and then suddenly turned into a much more "advanced" series - with subplots, deaths, double entendres and also what seemed to be lots of unnecessary extra info. Not always for the better. While for me the more interesting books were near the end - I liked No.s 4 and 6 best (Goblet of Fire, Half-Blood Prince), I also thought the weakest book was the longest book- the Order of the Phoenix. I felt that a lot could be said for having tighter scripts - say in The Philosopher's Stone, which had a certain charm to them, rather than lashing out and going all over the place. Bigger is not always better!

I think I was one of the later people to get into all the Harry Potter stuff, and while I found them amusing, sometimes charming and entertaining, and imaginative, I was a bit mystified as to what the big deal was - after all, there are plenty of fantastic authors out there and in my opinion many just as good if not better than Rowling, many with wonderful, imaginative ideas, great characters blah blah - so what was so special about this that had kids lining up for this rather than others?

I really don't know. One fan (adult) who was obviously starstruck started gong on to me about how she thought it was because Rowling had "created a whole world" but then, plenty of fantasy writers do just that.

I've watched the first 5 movies. I've heard that the 7th book may be made into two movies because there is so much material; to be honest I don't know if I could be bothered watching two movies for that book, certainly I wouldn't buy two cinema tickets. I'd have to wait til it came out on TV til I watched it.

Anyhow, it was a good experience. Aaaaah!