The Harry Potter reread has been interesting for several
reasons so far. For starters, it’s always nice to revisit a series you’ve read
before and that you know you enjoy. It’s also nice to pick up on things you didn’t
really notice before. There are a lot of details in each and every book of the
series and you’re guaranteed to find new details in the larger books the
second, third and even fourth time you read them. It’s been particularly
interesting for me to reread these books because it’s the first time that I’m
reading them as an adult. Because of my great familiarity with the characters
and story, what’s been keeping me most interested this time around has been
paying attention to how J. K. Rowling has constructed this series. The world
building and the construction of the narrative are keeping me as engaged as the
characters and as entertained as someone enjoying these stories for the first
time.
Myriam mentioned it at the very beginning of her post,
and I’ll second it here, Harry Potter and
the Prisoner of Azkaban sends the entire series up several notches. Don’t
get me wrong, the first two books are modern classics of young adult literature
but Prisoners of Azkaban greatly
expands the size and scope of the story and I would argue that it’s because of
this book that Harry Potter has
become a worldwide phenomenon and endured since the publication of the first
novel. It sounds like high praise for a series that is still so young compared
to other classic novels but let’s face it, the Harry Potter series is here to stay. I know that I’ll be reading
these books with my kids someday, and maybe they’ll do the same with theirs,
because Rowling didn’t just write cool stories about a boy wizard. She’s
created an entire fictional universe for young and old readers to visit time
and again. Harry, Dumbledore and Hogwarts may have been introduced in the first
book but the Wizard World, as we know it today, was first introduced in Prisoners of Azkaban.
