Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban

By JK Rowling

This is the third in the series of wonderful Harry Potters, the sequel to Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (both winners of the Nestlé Smarties Prize Gold Award). Although Rowling has a lot to live up to, she carries on the story with all the flair of the first two books. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a gripping magical mystery which is utterly suspenseful and exquisitely humorous.

Harry is forced to spend the summer with his dreaded relatives the Dursleys, secretly doing his magic homework in the dead of night and attempting to control his rather unwieldy text-books. Eventually his friends Hermione and Ron rescue him, and he returns to the third year at Hogwart's school. This time there is a mass murderer on the loose, and the guards of the Wizard prison Azkaban have been called in to guard the pupils. These Dementors are sinister and dehumanising creatures who manifest themselves in the form of their victim's deepest fear. Rowling's description is incredibly evocative, capturing a very adult concept in the forms of these creatures who affect Harry so inexplicably. Despite warnings, Harry is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Sirius Black, for how could this one-time close friend of his parents become the cause of their deaths? Meanwhile he throws himself into the new Quidditch season and attempts to carry on with normal, or not so normal, school life.

This novel is darker than the first ones, for as Harry grows older the traumatic deaths of his parents preoccupy him more and more. Rowling handles complicated childhood feelings towards loss and death with sensitivity and perceptiveness. The emotional heart of all the books lies in Harry's yearning for the parents he never knew, and this third novel is often heartbreakingly sad. In my opinion, this is the best so far, the books themselves growing up as Harry becomes more mature.

Kids' books for adults. Read them!

Jane Labous