Gabriela Čermáková, VIII



My Favourite Book

-Harry Potter series-

I have to admit that every time I say that my favourite books are "Harry Potter" series,I feel a little embarrassed. Nevertheless, the fact is that "Harry Potter" books helped me to overcome couple of difficult times in my life. I started reading them approximately at the age of 10 and since then I have read each of them really many times. Nowadays, as I am better at English than eight years ago, I read them only in original version.

Author:

I would like to introduce a little the author, J. K. Rowling now. Joanne Rowling was born in Yate, near Bristol. She admits to having been a bit of a daydreamer as a child and began writing stories at the age of six. After leaving Exeter University, where she studied French and Classics, she started working at a position of a English teacher but daydreamed about becoming a writer. One day, stuck on a delayed train for four hours between Manchester and London, she dreamed up a boy called "Harry Potter". That was in 1990. It took her six years to write the book. In the meantime, she went to teach in Portugal, married a Portuguese television journalist, had her daughter, Jessica, divorced her husband and finally returned to Britain. She went to live in Edinburgh to be near her sister. Suddenly, she realized that it was the right time to finish her "Harry Potter" book. She sent the manuscript to several publishing companies and after several rejections J.K. finally managed to sell her book Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone to Bloomsbury in 1996. Immediately, it was clear that her book is going to be a big success. All of her books have become the bestselling British books.Whole "Harry Potter" series contains altogether seven books whose names are :

( Harry Potter and the Philosopher´s Stone; ( Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets;

( Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; ( Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire;

( Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix; ( Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and the last book ( Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

( The book series is (especially in the USA) very controversial. The christinian community claims that it mislead children and young people. In some countries it is even forbidden literature. Roughly two years ago, the pope of catholic church interdicted J.K. Rowling and announced that the series is sinful.

Main characters:

Harry Potter: skinny boy, adventurous, clever, friendly

Albus Dumbledore: incredibly intelligent, headmaster of the school of wizardry in Hogwarts, gay

Hermione Granger+Ronald Weasley:Harry´s friends

lord Voldemort: the most evil wizard ever, Harry´s enemy

Plot summary:

The main character is Harry, a boy with magical powers who was orphaned at an early age and raised by his relatives, the Dursleys.The story begins when Harry is eleven years old and receives a letter of invitation to attend a school of wizardry in Hogwarts. Each book describes one year at that school. In the first book we follow a young boy into a world, which is absolutely new for both Harry and the reader. Harry learns about things he would never even dare think about. He gets into a world where it is normal to use owls for posting letters, where wizards and witches use wands in their daily lives and where the most popular sport is a game called Quiddich played in the air on brooms .... He also finds out that his parents were not killed during a car crash. In fact, they were killed by the most evil wizard ever-by lord Voldemort. In accordance to this, he learns that he is famous at least as that wizard. The reason is, that Harry was the only one who survived Voldemort´s killing curse and after this attempt to kill Harry, Voldemort inexplicably disappeared. After some time, it is clear that lord Voldemort did not actually die-his spirit survived and tried to gain the power in the wizarding world once again. Harry, who is called „The Chosen One“ and who is expected to be the only one who can defeat Voldemort in the last book of the series eventually kills him and the wizarding world is saved (hopefully forever).

An interesting thing about this book series is, that we can observe, how a young boy is gradually becoming a man. How he builds new relationships, how he overcomes losses of his family members and friends and how he fullfils his destiny which he chose on his own. I know that many people despise this book series because, in their opinion, it is not sophisticated or mature enough. In spite of it, I like "Harry Potter" series a lot. It has become a part of my life, for I lived in the Harry Potter world, though this world existed only in my mind.

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