I am a little bit ashamed to admit that I waited until I was 27 to read the Harry Potter series. I had seen the movies of course, I don't live under a rock, and I had really enjoyed them. But I had never read the books.
Which is odd in itself, not only because of the world wide phenomenon that it became, but because when The Philosophers Stone was released in 1997, eleven year old, fantasy loving me was the prime target audience. But being then, a book snob with (according to the education system) a high reading age, I was much more interested in the worlds of Eddings and Tolkin to be bothered with such a 'simple' story. I vaguely remember trying to read the first book at the time but getting half way through and deeming it "too childish" - yeah, I was that kid.
Thankfully I grew out of that phase eventually.
And I am so glad that I did. This series is worth every single scrap of hype that it has generated over the last 17 years.
The highest praise that I think I could possibly give it, is that it made me cry. There is nothing better, in my eyes anyway, than a book (and I guess in some respects a movie) that gets you so emotionally invested in the world and in the characters, that your own world gets ignored, and both the happy and the sad events cause you to react as though they were happening to you, rather than to your imaginary friends.
Over all, four stars from five for the series - this will definitely be required reading for any children that I have.
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