Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J.K. Rowling (ISBN 978-1408855898, Bloomsbury)

The first Harry Potter book, published in 1997. In 1999 the first 2 books were translated in Dutch. At that time more than 500000 had already been sold in the English speaking world of the first 2 books and film rights had been bought by Warner Bros. It was quite the hype in the UK and the books received positive ratings from children readers. But adults were reading the books as well. In fact, there were so many adult readers that an edition with an adult cover came out so that adults wouldn’t be embarrassed by reading a children’s book. The hype took full flight since then all over the world so nowadays I doubt there would be many adults ashamed to read Harry Potter. There are enough literary ‘snobs’ that will tell you these books are not literature and lack style and imagination and so on. But young and adult readers by the millions don’t care and read the books anyway. When the Dutch translation came out in 1999 I actually read an English copy picked up by my father in law at an airport waiting for a connecting flight. After that I have read all the other books as soon as they came out. The movies though I resisted to watch for a long time even though my kids liked to watch them. 2 years ago I finally agreed to watch the movies with the family but decided to read the books again first. My daughter then joined in reading the books as well as she found the beginning of the third movie quite scary and reading the books upfront might help with her ‘anxiety’. So beginning 2019 I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone again in ebook format such that my daughter could read the paper version in parallel. In this book the reader discovers together with Harry Harry’s history and the world of magic from which he has been shielded all his life to protect him. Now at age 11 he is ready to enrol at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to become a wizard. The fact that Harry is as new to the wizarding world as the reader helps the story along as there are no special asides needed to explain things, the explaining is done by the discovery process of Harry himself. The forces of good (Dumbledore) and evil (Voldemort) in the world of magic are introduced and the special place Harry takes in this world is explained. 11 years earlier Voldemort seemed defeated when he tried but failed to kill Harry. But Voldemort didn’t die and is growing stronger again. To regain his power he needs the philosopher’s stone and Harry mainly due to curiosity and somewhat due to destiny is forced to face evil. This book seems to target young readers of a similar age as Harry and it is appropriately short and light hearted. There is some tension and adventure but nothing too scary yet. Nevertheless the story is well told and this book reads like a real page turner. I read this 300 page book in roughly a week during evenings with the last third in 2 days. So even though I had read the book before and knew what was coming I got pulled into the story so much I couldn’t put it down. A nice introduction to the world of Harry Potter. It introduces the main characters and sets the scene for what will unfold in the next 6 books.