The Magic Starts Here: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

This past week I've been remembering an old friend. His name is Harry Potter, and you've might have met him too.

The first time I saw Harry, he was just a skinny eleven year old kid with touseled black hair, taped up glasses, and a funny lightning-bolt shaped scar on his forehead. (His Aunt told him he got the scar in the car crash that killed his Mum and Dad, but don't you believe it.)

Poor Harry. He spent most of his childhood living in a cramped room under the stairs at his Aunt and Uncle's house, an orphan boy who longed for love and for a real family. If you think that sounds like a fairy-tale...well, you'd be right. And you'll really think it sounds like a fairy-tale when I tell you he's finally rescued from the awful Dursleys by a giant on a flying motorcycle who gives him his rightful invitation to a magic school housed in a castle, where he learns to wield his very own magical wand.

Don't you remember the fun of it all? The first time you met Harry? If your answer is yes, then like me, you've probably been enjoying the recent commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the first American edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (titled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in England). If your answer is no, then I hope it means you've just not had a chance to meet Harry yet, one of my favorite characters in children's literature. Believe me, he's worth meeting, and I think you'll enjoy his story very much.

That story was penned by J.K. Rowling. Sorcerer's Stone is the first book of a seven-book series which wrapped up just last year with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Rowling planned the seven book series all along, but she could never have expected the tremendous success of the books, which broke all sorts of publishing records and helped many children of Harry's "generation" (especially those in the 11-18 age range, growing up along with their beloved hero) enjoy reading.

I won't recount much plot, mostly because I don't want to spoil it for the lucky few who haven't yet made the trip to Hogwarts. But you should know that Hogwarts is the magical school I mentioned earlier, to which Harry is invited to attend. It turns out that he's a wizard like his parents before him. Their deaths were not ordinary, and neither is Harry's calling and place in his new world, a magical world which Rowling cleverly paints as hidden in unseen pockets in our ordinary world. So much of the book's "magic" comes through Harry learning to see and appreciate this deeper reality all around him, and to find his place in this new world. Sorcerer's Stone is a fairy-tale, but that's just one element in the many literary layers Rowling has put together, like a many-layered and lavishly decorated cake. It's also a quest story, a school story, an alchemical drama, and the first segment in a long, coming-of age epic. Whew!

And it's just flat-out fun to read. Harry is as likable (and flawed) a little boy as you'll ever hope to meet, and readers young and old will be able to resonate with his orphan longings and his struggles to find his place. Rowling also gives him delightful friends and mentors: Albus Dumbledore, the wisest wizard of his age and headmaster of Hogwarts; Hagrid, the benevolent half-giant groundskeeper who harbors a love for ferocious creatures (in this book he's especially fascinated with dragons); red-haired Ron Weasley, as solid and loyal a best friend any boy could wish for; and Hermione, a know-it-all girl who outsmarts everyone in classes but turns out to have more than just brains. Harry needs these friends and more because it turns out that Rowling has also given him some nemeses: the shadowy, ephemeral Voldemort, an evil wizard trying to make a comeback; and closer to home, the greasy Potions teacher, Professor Snape, who seems to loathe Harry the moment he sets eyes on him; not to mention a bratty little boy named Draco Malfoy, as slimy sounding as his name, who feels an incessant need to compete with Harry.

And then there's the delightful setting. The castle has magical paintings and moving staircases, the children learn Latin spells, the food is fantastic (chocolate frog or every-flavor-bean, anyone?) the kids are sorted into competitive houses based on the musings of a magical hat, and they play a marvelous game on flying broomsticks. There's even a shadowy forbidden forest right on the outskirts of the school. Did I mention this book is just plain fun?

It's clear I enjoy this book and the entire series, but that doesn't mean they've gone without criticism. Besides marking the 10th anniversary of the first American edition, I chose to review Sorcerer's Stone this week because it's banned book week, and the Harry Potter books have been on the list of most challenged books practically since they came out. Poor Harry got it from both sides of the culture war. The left derided them as literary pablum: not good reading for kids, and certainly not for adults. (You have to say that last part with your nose in the air, while simultaneously making sure that the NY Times suddenly finds a dire need to create a separate children's best-seller list, so you won't be too embarrassed to find Harry Potter on the grown-up one.) The right seemed incapable of distinguishing between books that have a legitimately dangerous occult element and books that, in the best literary tradition of the Inklings and their ilk, use magic as a literary device. At any rate, people have tried to banish these books.

My advice would be to ignore both sets of critics and read the Harry Potter books for yourself. As I've reviewed the later volumes (I came somewhat late to the series, not picking it up until after the fourth volume was published) I've always encouraged parents to read these books with their children. They are wonderful read-alouds and have a gold-mine of themes worth talking about deeply, but some of the issues presented are heavy. Learning to deal with grief over the loss of loved ones and learning to wield power wisely and well in the face of real evil are just two of those many themes. Those themes are already present* in Sorcerer's Stone, a clever, funny and thought-provoking beginning to a fine series.

And those are things worth talking about, aren't they? And reading about too.

Happy Anniversary, Harry!

~befus, 2008

This is part of pestyside's 2008 Banned Books Write-Off.

My reviews of the final three books in the series (reviews of books 2-4 coming eventually):
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows


* I mention many of the series themes are present in Sorcerer's Stone. And they are, but because of how they're handled (and the joyful, fairy-tale feel to much of the book) I feel it's still appropriate for 10 or 11 year olds...in other words, kids around the same age as Harry. The themes become weightier and darker in the later volumes. In many ways the books work best when read by young people who have a chance to grow up along with them, who remain the approximate age of Harry in each book, if that makes sense.