What a grand cover they put together for the anniversary edition of The Sorcerer’s Stone. The cover really capturesthe majesty and wonder Rowling’s world created for each of us.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Book Review
by J.K. ROWLING I’d give this one 4.5 snitches out of 5. To some people, this is the book series that should not be named, and that’s sad. It’s been credited for starting a reading revolution, and if you judge a book by its sales, it most certainly has. It also brought the middle grade and the young adult demographic into the light, and caused a flurry of authors to flock there. And it’s been awesome. There are a lot of great middle grade and young adult books out there now. I started reading these books to my children when I started my MBA program at the local university almost ten years ago. There was something magical about Rowling’s world of Griffendors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and Slitherins. My children loved the books, but it also awakened something in me. I had always enjoyed writing and storytelling. I suppose I had forgotten that at the time. These books reminded me that I wanted to write. I wanted to tell stories. So it was that, shortly after taking on the commitment to get an MBA, that I decided to write a book, too. Crazy, I know. That’s how powerful the story was, for me, I suppose. Well, on to the review. 
The Sorcerer’s Stone follows a little abandoned baby named Harry Potter. The first few chaptered are shrouded with plenty of mystery regarding the characters and the circumstances bringing them all together. An abandoned baby marked with a lightning scar on his head shows up on the porch of, and is taken in by a shabby family at a odd time when strange folk in weird clothing wandering the streets. There is a whole other world, a wizard world, that is celebrating the defeat of the greatest dark wizard of all time–at little Harry’s hand, so to speak. Everyone seems to know about it, except him. Fast forward to him being a young boy. He’s still being mistreated by a family that begrudgingly took him in. All seems horrible, and lost until one day Harry receives a cryptic letter. His aunt and uncle try to keep it from him, but someone is determined to get him the letter. Several magical manifestations later, and Harry ends up discovering the letter from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Later, he learns that he is a wizard, even though he doesn’t know it. 
Harry gets off to school on a magical train, the Hogwarts Express, and meets a handful of folks that end up being his close friends, particularly a humble, yet funny boy named Ron Weasley, and a know-it-all girl named Hermione Granger. This trio ends up being the nucleus of friendship for Harry throughout the series of Harry Potter books. As they arrive at school, Harry realizes that not everything is chocolate frogs, and butter beer. While Hogwarts is a fascinating place, and he should be safe to learn magic there, multiple houses exist that a magical sorting hat places them in. These houses represent groupings of magic users with similar talents or attributes. Griffendors are courageous, for example, while Siltherins are ambitious. These houses introduce another layer of conflict, and competition amongst the wizards.
Harry gets sorted into the Griffendor house, not surprisingly, along with Ron and Hermione. Their friendship evolves, and their personalities come out even more. We also get to see how other people view each of these characters. Ron is berated for being poor, Hermione for being a know-it-all, and Harry for having celebrity that he didn’t earn. Harry is basically the most popular person in a world he’s absolutely ignorant about. As the year goes on, Harry and team start to learn a little bit about the dark wizard, Voldemort, and how he was responsible for Harry’s parent’s deaths. He learns that Snape, the potions master, doesn’t like him at all. They discover a three headed dog, a troll, and many other things that eventually lead them to inquire about the sorcerer’s stone, and Nicolas Flamel’s pursuit of immortality and why the dark lord would be interested in it. I won’t spoil the whole book, but The Sorcerer’s Stone is a fantastic adventure full of magic, wonder, interesting characters, and perhaps one of the best developed worlds in any fiction I’ve ever read. If you love Fantasy, especially Urban Fantasy in the YA genre, and you happen to have avoided the Harry Potter series somehow, it might be time you check it out. The Sorcerer’s Stone a fantastic debut novel from J.K. Rowling, and a wondering start to one of the most famous series of books of all time.
