Harry Potter Series: Part 1; My Review

Hello, everyone, Today we are back with another book review. You can tell what book it is just by looking at the title.....

It's Harry Potter! But you might ask, which one? There are 7 books and you're sure I can't fit them all into one review/post!

You might be correct, but I will make one post for each book, which is why the title has "Part 1". First, for this post, we will be talking about "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". (Author: JK. Rowling, Credits to Her)

Near the end of the book review, I will rate the book in 5 categories.

1: Story

2: Enjoyability/Entertaining/Fun/Engaging Factor

3: Awards and Achievements

4: Character Development

and, 5: Imagination/Creativity

P.S

I have only read up until "Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire" so I will only make 4 parts of this series until I read "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix".

The book starts off with Potter's uncle, "Vernon Dursley". Who's the wife of "Petunia Evans (Dursley)" Both are muggles.

Petunia is the sister of Lily Evans (Potter), It shows Harry living with the Dursley Family. For those who haven't read the book, you may ask; Why? He has Parents right? Well, Harry's parents were killed by the main antagonist of the show, "Lord Voldemort" (Tom Riddle). He was said to be the most dangerous and powerful Dark Wizard of all time and was even feared by wizards outside of Britain.

Before the people who haven't read the book ask why we are mentioning "Wizards" and "Muggles", I'll tell you about a magic and wizardry school called "Hogwarts" you may or may not have heard of it even as a non-book reader. It is the most popular and best wizardry school in the United Kingdom. Harry's Parents learned wizardry and magic from this school, His father "James Potter" is a "Pure-Blood" which means both of his parents were born by parents that were wizards/witches. Meanwhile, his mother was muggle-born and a "Mudblood", which means that she was born to parents that weren't wizards/witches.

She went to Hogwarts and learned witchcraft due to a boy named "Severus Snape" telling her about the existence of magic and wizardry. And a "Muggle" is a person that is not a wizard or witch and probably has no knowledge of witchcraft and wizardry since birth.

There are 3 types of wizards/witches. "Pure-Bloods" are people whose parents were both witch/wizard-born, "Half-Bloods" is the same as Pure-Bloods except one of the parents was muggle-born, and finally; "Muggle-Born" which you can guess, was born by muggle parents.

Now that everything is cleared up, let's start.

On Harry's 11th Birthday, Harry is visited by Hagrid, Who tells him he's a wizard and soon after that, Harry is invited to attend Hogwart's School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You might ask, Why did Hagrid have to tell Harry about him being a wizard, Shouldn't he know? Well, Harry's Parents were killed when he was just a toddler/baby, So he didn't get to know about his parent's being a wizard. He was brought, orphaned and raised into the Dursley Family and Petunia swore to remove the wizard from him.

Later he attends Hogwart's, To get to Hogwart's. You have to go through King's Cross Station's Platform nine and three-quarters which is the train platform from which students board the Hogwarts Express, the scarlet steam engine that brings students to and from Hogwarts. It can be accessed by walking straight through the solid barrier between platforms nine and ten.

He meets 2 new (best) friends inside the Hogwarts Express, "Ronald Bilius Weasly" and "Hermione Jean Granger". He also meets and acquires an enemy, "Draco Lucius Malfoy". Malfoy wanted to be friends with Harry but Harry refused because Malfoy was mean to Hagrid and Ron (Ronald). He also had a smug attitude.

While preparing for Hogwarts by buying tools with Hagrid, He met a professor at the school named "Professor Quirrel". He covered the back of his head all the time, Quirrel was obsessed with Harry and wanted to get close to him, But Harry didn't realize this.

Do you remember Severus Snape? He is now a professor at Hogwarts. He is the Potion Teacher, Supposedly he was mean to Harry, but that's because Harry had traits similar to his father, James Potter. Whom Snape hates because Snape liked Lily (Harry's Mother) but she ended up marrying James. Which is what caused his attitude against Harry.

Snape was framed for putting a curse on Harry's broom during Quidditch, and that made Hermione, Harry, and Ron think that all that Snape wanted was to take the philosopher's stone and run away with it. And Harry wanted to protect the stone because it was one of Lord Voldemort's priorities. Soon after that, they suspected one of the professors' was working for Lord Voldemort and helping him. Of course, them, suspecting Snape was putting a curse on Harry's broom leads them to think it was Snape helping Lord Voldemort.

(Quidditch; is basically football but for magicians, and it uses brooms and a smaller ball, short explanation)

(Philosopher's stone; a stone created by the Philosopher named Nick Flannel who was close friends with Dumbledore. This stone had an elixir of life which can make the person Immortal, that is why Voldemort wants it so that he can rule the world.)

Flannel intrusted Dumbledore (Headmaster of Hogwarts) with the stone, It is guarded by several challenges, If failed it can cause unconsciousness or death. At this point, Harry knew that someone wanted to take the stone. So he immediately started trying to go through the challenges with Ron and Hermione, He got to the end and he met someone he didn't expect...

Professor Quirrel... He was the one helping and guiding Lord Voldemort, In fact, the back of his head is Voldemort which is why the back of his head is covered. They end up fighting which leads to harry fainting BUT he is awakened by Dumbledore at the School Hospital and Voldemort didn't end up obtaining the stone, it's now safely guarded.

Now that the Main Story section is cleared, we will move on to the Fun/Engaging Factor

The book has 223 pages, which may seem like a lot but It's worth it to read, I would say it is the most engaging, fun, enjoyable, and entertaining book (series) I've ever read. It is a mix of Urban Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller, and finally, Adventure.

The Harry Potter series has received a host of awards since the initial publication of The Philosopher's Stone, including four Whitaker Platinum Book Awards (all of which were awarded in 2001), three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes (1997–1999), two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1999 and 2001), the inaugural Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award (1999), the WHSmith Book of the Year (2006), and others. - Source, LingQ

Character Development:

Harry has learned many things from Dumbledore and trust is only one of them, he went from knowing nothing about magic to possibly saving the whole magic world by preventing Voldemort from obtaining the stone and using the elixir of life to his advantage.

Now, The creativity, fantasy and Imagination in this book and in the overall series, are amazing. You can't deny it, Rowling took the idea from things that happened in real life (e.g her mother passing away, which is what created the idea of harry's parents being dead), She took the Hogwarts express and the train station idea when she was crossing from Manchester to London on a train, etc.

Overall, this is the best book and the best series I've ever read, before we end the review, I will give my rating for this book.

Story: 10/10

Fun/Engaging Factor: 10/10

Achievements and Awards: 10/10, The number of awards just shows that this book is great and successful.

Character Development: 8/10

Imagination/Creativity: 10/10

This is, by far, the longest review I have ever made, even though this took me only less than 23 hours.

This is the end of the review, I hope I will see you in the next one. Be sure to look at the other reviews! But I have improved a lot since then. Goodbye.