New Harry Potter Book Lives Up To Hype
There's Good Reason To Be Wild About Harry
A sleepy-looking little boy standing patiently in a teeming Barnes & Noble store in St. Paul on the evening of July 7 pretty much summed it up:
"The lady who wrote these books is awesome," he said. "I don't think she's a Muggle."
Being called a non-Muggle -- which is Potter-speak for anyone who isn't a witch or a wizard -- is the most heartfelt, and accurate, tribute imaginable for author J.K. Rowling, whose Harry Potter books have, among other things:
- Become an unmatched sensation in the publishing world, ruling the top of both the adult and children bestseller lists for months and months.
- Accomplished the seemingly impossible task of making children of all ages want to read.
With the latest installment in the series, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," Rowling has delivered to her avid young (and older) fans her best book so far.
Yup, it's long: 734 pages. And yes, it's much, much darker than the previous three books, which detailed young wizard-in-training Harry's first three years at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. (Much has been made of the fact that a character -- a good one, not an evil one -- dies near the end of "Goblet of Fire.")
Of the four books, Rowling's latest volume is also the one that spins the most cohesive, well-crafted tale.
The book opens during the summer between Harry's third and fourth years at Hogwarts. He is once again sentenced to spending the summer with his relentlessly clueless Muggle relatives, the Dursleys, until Harry's friend Ron Weasley and his family show up to collect him to attend the much-anticipated Quidditch World Cup.
Harry's fourth year at Hogwarts is markedly different from his previous years: Through a twist of fate, he is chosen to compete in the Triwizard Tournament.
There are some new characters, too. Among the most memorable are Mad-Eye Moody, Hogwarts' new Defense Against the Dark Arts instructor, and a hapless house-elf named Winky, who figures prominently throughout the story.
One of the most unsettling -- and intriguing -- aspects of Rowling's books is that a character who appears to be one of the good guys can suddenly become as evil as Voldemort. There's plenty of that in "Goblet of Fire" -- enough to keep readers young and old turning pages late into the night (there were lots of reports of long-past-their-bedtime reading sessions on the night that "Goblet of Fire" was released).
Rowling's greatest skill as a writer is her fearless imagination, which she uses in turn to unlock the imaginations of her readers. (I was particularly enthralled by the idea of the "Pensieve," a large bowl in which Dumbledore deposits the thoughts and memories for which he no longer has room in his mind.)
And one of her most valuable skills is that she doesn't underestimate the intelligence of her young readers. She refuses to talk down to them, and she doesn't flinch from the uglier -- and sometimes scarier -- aspects of her stories.
But that's also the reason why some readers, especially those 8 and younger, might be unsettled by the last few chapters, in which Harry's final confrontation (in this book, at any rate) with Voldemort takes place. Fair warning: Those chapters could induce nightmares. (They almost did with me, and I'm considerably older than 8.)
It's hard to choose Rowling's greatest contribution to literature. Let's leave it at this: She writes a great story.
She's clearly not a Muggle.
