Reading Harry Potter: Critical Essays

By the end of the twentieth century, there were few people in the English-speaking world who had never heard of a boy named Harry Potter. British author Joanne Kathleen Rowling, better known by the androgynous initials "J. K." - achieved astounding commercial success with her series of novels focusing on the young wizard with the lightning-bolt forehead scar who finds out about his magical powers on the morning of his eleventh birthday. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the first book of a planned seven, each of which follows the protagonist through one year of his education at Hogwars School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, won the 1997 British Book Awards Children's Book of the year, and the 1998 Parenting magazine Book of the Year Award. It was named "one of the best books of 1998" by Publisher's Weekly, School Library Journal, and Booklist in the United States. An illustration of Harry Potter on the cover of Time magazine made Rowling the first children's writer to be featured in a Time cover story.

In this book, you will find various critical essays about Harry Potter novels.