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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanJ. K. Rowling
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanJ. K. Rowling
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In this third Harry Potter book, things go awry from the very start. Harry finally loses his temper with his awful relatives, the Dursleys, and bolts from their house to make his way back to his third year of wizardry school. He knows he's in trouble for using his magic on the Muggles, but is seamlessly rescued from his predicament and immediately involved in yet another mystery, the whereabouts of a prison-escaped wizard who is apparently determined to find Harry and take his revenge. And so the tale continues...
This book is slightly different from the others in that the children have a quiet and ever-present ally in Professor Lupin, a new and more respectable teacher at Hogwarts than those professors found in the previous books. It also is darker than the others in continued presence of the dementors, who are chilling, decaying, hooded, black-robed jailers looking for the above escapee. Lastly, a lot more of Harrys parent's mysterious past is revealed and finally the reader can now understand more about other character's behaviors.
Having now read this book and the first two, Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, it really feels like these stories are going to become classic books for mid-to late- grade school kids. These books contain many of the attributes of best-loved children stories, the battle of good-and-evil, the adventure of striking out (without permission) to solve a mystery, learning about and testing the fragile and uplifting bonds of friendship, children utilizing their own developing logic and finding serendipity along the path of growing up. All in all, a tale to take kids away in to the wonderful world of books!
The book is rated for an audience of children ages 9 to 12. Please use your parental judgement when exposing this to children younger than advised by the publisher, as some of the book's scary characters may disturb younger children.
For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig.
As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black--an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban--is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works. (Ages 9 and older) --Amazon.com
For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord Voldemort.
Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep. "He's at Hogwart's...he's at Hogwarts."
Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst.
J.K. Rowling was a struggling single mother when she wrote the beginnings of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone on scraps of paper at a local cafe. But her efforts soon paid off, as she received an unprecedented award from the Scottish Arts Council enabling her to finish the book. Since then, the debut novel has become an international phenomenon, garnering rave reviews and major awards, including the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year, and the Smarties Prize.
Ms. Rowling lives in Edinburgh with her daughter.