Harry Potter Book 5

[martinj73]

I have read the 5th Harry Potter book and its great and long, being about 766 pages long. Miss Umbridge seems to be a head teacher from the horror realm when she expected Harry to write lines using his blood in detention. You can imagine the pain that Harry must have felt. It alarmed me that J. K. Rowling could write about something like this in a children's book. What do you think?

However, I am looking forward to reading the 6th and 7th Harry Potter books when they are in the book shop. I may even pre-order them like I did with book 5.

I have many other books to read first before I come round to rereading the Harry Potter books. I have already read book 4 twice.

[h_carnahan]

Well it doesn't seem that bad after you think about it. I remember reading a biography about her and it said that she never intended for these to be childerns books, but then once they were published, childern began reading them as well as adults.

everything that she has out into these novels has a point for this it is simple and clear:
this proves that Harry is determined to do what must be done and will not bow down to evil or show his pain, it shows part of his personality more, it adds to the overall darkness of the book. speaking of darkness, Harry makes a nasty teenager. everything that he seems to think is negative and the whole book has its downward/evilness about it: Unbridge, the Minister of Magic being a complete ass, the whole thing with Neville's parents, Sirrus dying, the evil house elf, Mrs. Black's portrait, the ocolomy thing with Harry and Voldermort.... Doesn't it seem incredibly different than all the other books, just how dark it was?

I loved the part where they ran into Professor Lockhart at the Wizard's Hospital, it seemed to bring some humor to the sad momments.

[Ashlea]

If they weren't meant to be children's books then why are they published in the states by Scholastic, which only publishes children's books? Not buying that one - they are obviously written, published, and marketed for kids.

Children's lit doesn't have to be happy happy joy joy all the time - look at Roald Dahl and Phillip Pullman.

[VTChEwbecca]

I had heard that JK Rowling stated that she intended the books to grow with the children. Assuming they started reading the first one at age 11 and she published one per year (which is obviously not the case), they'd be 18 by the end of the series. Therefore, the books can get a bit darker with time.


And Harry does make one angry teenager...wow. I thought that was annoying part of the book, I mean, I can understand his anger, but I think Rowling may have taken it too far.

[RainbowGurl]

Originally Posted by martinj73

I have read the 5th Harry Potter book and its great and long, being about 766 pages long. Miss Umbridge seems to be a head teacher from the horror realm when she expected Harry to write lines using his blood in detention. You can imagine the pain that Harry must have felt. It alarmed me that J. K. Rowling could write about something like this in a children's book. What do you think?

However, I am looking forward to reading the 6th and 7th Harry Potter books when they are in the book shop. I may even pre-order them like I did with book 5.

I have many other books to read first before I come round to rereading the Harry Potter books. I have already read book 4 twice.

I've read that book too, I found it quite boring though, which was a dissapointment...

[h_carnahan]

Originally Posted by RainbowGurl

I've read that book too, I found it quite boring though, which was a dissapointment...

May I ask why? You are one of the few people I know who didn't like it.

[Stella Leanna]

Originally Posted by martinj73

I have read the 5th Harry Potter book and its great and long, being about 766 pages long. Miss Umbridge seems to be a head teacher from the horror realm when she expected Harry to write lines using his blood in detention. You can imagine the pain that Harry must have felt. It alarmed me that J. K. Rowling could write about something like this in a children's book. What do you think?

I think the maturity level of her books goes higher as Harry and his friends grow up, so these books may be more for the older ages. Children shouldn't be reading those, unless there's parental guidance

[h_carnahan]

Originally Posted by Stella Leanna

I think the maturity level of her books goes higher as Harry and his friends grow up, so these books may be more for the older ages. Children shouldn't be reading those, unless there's parental guidance

Parental guidence??? I think that the Harry Potter books are much cleaner than some of the books that childern are reading today. Even basic comic books are worse then Harry Potter. childern don't need parental guidence to read Harry Potter!

[eggplant]

Rowling must get awful tired of people telling her “you just write children’s books so you can’t do this and you must do that”. At times she must say to herself, children’s author am I, well I’ll show them just what a “children’s author” can do; and then proceed to write a bloodbath that would give Stephen King nightmares. I have no doubt she has the ability.
Eggplant

[RisingPhoinex]

I personally think that the book was awsome. A much needed break from the Hogwarts based books. I think the reason some people didn't like this book as well as the others is that they didn't understand the point of the book. It's point is not the same as the others. It is focused on the main plot and looks at the wider picture rather then how Voldremont affects Harry and Hogworts.
I also agree that it was rather agnst at times but a writer has that liberty with his or her work.
Thanks,
RP

[sugarz]

I just finished the 5th book, and I thought it was great. The longer the better. But I do agree with a previous poster that all the bickering back and forth got really annoying sometimes. I skipped a lot of pages because of it.

[vicky982]

i think the books are getting better as more come out, i think that they started out appealing to younger children but it soon became apparent that more adults where reading them, what i like about this book is everythign is carried over from the book before, there no fresh year at hogwarts. its more realistic. i think it has some good issues to get across as well. i realy enjoyed the book and cant wait for the next one to come out.

[h_carnahan]

I agree, the books are developing the characters so much more as they go on that you can sometimes anticipate what will be said, i really like that. instead of redeveloping the characters as the series goes on like some books do, they further enhance the characters. the more recent books also are growing more complex as all the characters get older. i also like that because it makes the characters seem more real for example harry as the angry teenager instead of running through fields picking roses.

[Stella Leanna]

Originally Posted by h_carnahan

Parental guidence??? I think that the Harry Potter books are much cleaner than some of the books that childern are reading today. Even basic comic books are worse then Harry Potter. childern don't need parental guidence to read Harry Potter!

notice the smiley -->
I was joking. 0_o

[3ebfan11]

I'll first state that I thoroughly was delighted with the OOTP. I was disappointed however that JK Rowling didn't make the story a bit darker. As stated before, the first two books can be considered children's novels. After that I think we move to the young adult category. Now the beautiful part about the series is that Ms. Rowling manages to keep the novels appropriote while having them appeal to everyone. The problem is that in today's world, there are few books&movies that are appropriote and good, there is an assumption that a movie needs to be R to be good and that a book needs lots of sex&drugs to keep the drama building up.

If anything, be glad that Jo has stayed at this level of innocence, I don't know how old the people making the parental guidance comments are, but going through your teens at this time isn't the same as it was 20 years ago. Pick up a copy of 'the perks of being a wallflower' or 'the rules of attraction' and you'll understand my point.

For your info, I'm 13 and I've been reading the series since the second grade. When I re-read the series now, I am more scared than I was when I was younger

As far as the opus dei-like punishment, I'd like to remind readers that this is similar to punishments administered in places such as North Korea, there was an article on how Umbridge's punishment is similar to a self-infliction punishment that alot of kids get in communist countries, it came out during the summer sometime, I tried googling for it but couldn't find anything (you may find something in the wizardnews, tlc, mugglenet, or hpana archives). Like many ideas in the septology, this magical way of "cutting" represents the world and these strange ideals may not be common where you live, but you have to remember HP is a global book (you never know when an hp fan will say "...and she was going easy on harry, last tuesday Mr...." ).