Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Paperback – Abridged, September 1, 2014

I’ve been putting off reading this series for ages! I thought since I’d seen the movies a million times, I basically knew the story by heart. Nope! As always, the book delivered so much more richer details, deeper understanding, and moments I completely missed while watching the films.Now I truly see why children and adults alike adore this series. It’s magical, fun, and full of heart. I can’t wait to dive into the rest of the books!

This is, of course, the book that launched the multi-billion dollar franchise about the orphaned boy named Harry Potter that finds out he is a Wizard when he turns 10 years old, and has been accepted to Hogwart's School for Witches and Wizards. It would eventually spawn seven books, eight movies, a spin-off series, and a play. For the few who do not know the story, this book basically establishes Harry learning that his parents were Wizards and killed by an evil wizard named Voldemort, who also tried to kill Harry as an infant. The attempt to kill Harry failed, and Harry was sent by Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts to live with his aunt and uncle and then chronicles his first year at Hogwarts where he meets two schoolmates who would become his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermoine Granger.For those who have seen the movie but have not yet read the book, this is the shortest of the novels so it has the least amount of material removed in the movie adaptation. That said, the movie did change some things and did shorten some sequences. For example, the opening sequence with the Dursleys is more extended in the novel and things like the trip to the zoo play out a bit differently than was shown in the movie. But, all the main plot points from the book ended up in the movie, especially once Harry gets to Hogwarts, so that will not be much different.The book is age-appropriate for kids about 10-11 years old and up. Rowling intended that the kids reading it would be about the same age as the characters in the book, so for the first novel around 10-11 years old. The books get increasingly darker and more adult with each new book, but really for this book a kid only really needs to understand the concept of death and "good guys" versus "bad guys". Otherwise, the novel is pretty tame. It has a good blend of humor, action, and suspense, and touches on themes of family, friends, right vs. wrong, and the like. Even though it is technically a "kids book" it is enjoyable enough for an adult, and even though it was written in the mid to late 1990s, it holds up well enough to be enjoyable even years later. It can easily be enjoyed by people in their 20s, 30s, 40s, etc., whether your first experience with the Harry Potter universe was as a young kid, as a teenager, or (as in my case) as an adult because of watching the movies. And, because it is only a few hundred pages and meant for young kids to be able to read it, adults who are fairly quick readers can probably get through it in a couple of days without a problemUltimately, by now anyone reading this likely knows enough about Harry Potter to know the overall story and knows whether they like it or not. But, if you are just getting introduced to the series and are looking at the reviews if you are into fantasy novels or themes like magic, this is definitely worth reading. While it is nowhere near the best book of the series, it does a good job establishing the main characters, telling the stand-alone portion of the story, inviting the Sorcerer's Stone, and setting up what is to come down the line.

So excited to start reading my book. Amazon had it for a great price compared to the stores in my area.

The last few days, I've decided to re-introduce myself to the JK Rowling's Harry Potter novels. You probaly know that when a topic has the scent of controversy about it, the Christian fundamentalists (far more conservative than my personal religious leanings) usually make some sort of stink about it. I have seen this trend for most of my life: TSR's Dungeons and Dragons games, Scorcese's Last Temptation of Christ--heck, I even remember hearing a sermon preached about Pac-Man, and about Ravel's Bolero. Over the years, I've come to decide for myself, with Judi's opinion mattering greatly of course, what is (or is not) appropriate for my eyes, or my children's. So, in 2001, I picked . This was 10 years ago, to this very month, when Daniel was in first grade. I wanted to see all the fuss for myself. I wanted to introduce Daniel to a genre I loved and, maybe deep inside myself, I wanted to disrespect the decrees of the fundamentalist Morality Cops just a little bit.You probably know the plot of the Potter novels. You've probably seen the films, swore loudly as you stepped on the Lego pieces in the dark, and maybe you've even bought the vibrating Nimbus 2000 broomstick--it was pulled from Toys 'R' Us shelves, when an alarmed public realized more naughty adults were buying them for themselves than for their children.I need not have bothered worrying about the Morality cops. Rowling is an amazing writer (Her name, by the way, rhymes with Bowling, not Prowling). I knew, going into the series, that the story was about a boy wizard. I did not expect her adeptness at setting a tone. Take, for example, the opening sentence of this famous novel: "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much." With less than 25 words, she captures the attention of the reader, sets a stage, and divides her world into two camps: those who are normal, and those who were not. She employs a light irony in her narrative that neither mocks the reader nor her characters. Moreover, this was Rowling's first novel. Each character introduced--the boorish Dursleys; Hagrid, the hairy motorcycle-riding giant; Professor Dumbledore (a Merlin/Gandalf analogue, if there ever was one); and thin-lipped Professor Minerva Macgonagall, followed by the hero of the series, who is maltreated by his Aunt and Uncle.We follow the young lad as he meets the wizarding world, and is accepted into Hogwarts, Britain's foremost school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and confronts the malevolent Lord Voldemort, who created such havoc at the time of Harry's birth that the magic community still refers to him as "You-Know-Who." Her sentences are usually pitch perfect, and she has an uncanny way of blending genres with excellent writing.A word about genre literature in general, and fantasy literature in particular: it is no stretch to find other series (Machale's Pendragon series, and Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series both spring to mind) written for young adults, where a young person of unknown magical powers are introduced to a world with an evil overlord that only he may slay. I'm okay with this: it's the mark of genre literature, in the style 12th-century heroic balladeers. The story isn't the plot, so much as how it is told.I think I'm letting my head get in front of my fingers a bit as I type, so let me rephrase: genre literature is supposed to be fixed in form. Potter falls neatly into the heroic category, as well as fantasy genre, as well as the bildungsroman (coming-of-age novel). I say this because we expect genre literature to fall inside a genre. We expect Harry to confront The Dark Lord, and probably to lose Dumbledore along the way (in much the same way as George Lucas penned his Star Wars series). We expect him to find allies along the way, and for Potter to make enemies. Rowling does something substantially more: she writes her characters skillfully and believably, in every single page. Harry Potter and his friends are comfortable in their genre skin, in an unforced manner. Hermione is now a famous name because the frizzy-haired, brainy 11-year-old witch was written with letter-perfect precision. Many other authors of Young Adult fiction fail at the same task Rowling set for herself.I can think of no better endorsement for Rowling and her work than the following anecdote. My son Daniel was unable to read his own name at the beginning of first grade. By Christmas day of that same year, he had completed the first two Harry Potter novel. Say what you will about the witchy, supposedly-non-Christian values of her magical world, she taught my son to read. His blinders were lifted and it set him on a lifelong track that makes this librarian not only proud, but amazed. A person rarely gets to see literacy actually happen in a person. I have JK Rowling, and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, to thank for that gift.

It has taken me until now to be introduced to Harry Potter. Always thought it was too childish for me. I was surprised to learn that it has more than enough adventure to keep an adult entertained. I love Hagrid. Hermione and Ron were wonderful friends for Harry. Can't wait to read the next book. 😊