Rating: 
Summary: A Mystery in the Saga
Review: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is different from both of the books that come before it. This book is a sort of mystery/fantasy like the others, but this time Harry feels a stronger emnity towards the perpetratior because Sirius Black affected him personally. Voldermort had also done so, but he is the embodiment of all evil, and Harry's reaction is normal. But Sirus Black is different in a way that I can not explain.
In the third book in the "Harry Potter" saga, Harry is introduced to the evil dementors, who haunt him day in and day out. He is curious about Hermione's strange schedule, but that's the least of his troubles. The silly Divination teacher. Professer Trewlany, is predicting Harry's apparent death, which he finds incredibly boring and stupid. . . and he's not the only one! He finds out that an escaped convict is on the loose, and looking for him! In the end it all wraps up in an extrodinary climax.
New characters include the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Remus Lupin,who, though being the best DADA teacher Harry has ever had, might be a bit dangerous. You have Sirius Black, an escaped convict, who is said to be coming after Harry! And you have a character who in new in a sense, and yet not new. I won't reveal his name.
This book teaches the value of every human life, and shows how complex our choices really are.
Now, many Christians may accuse this book of supporting Divination. I am a Christian myself, and I say this. The Divination in this book is used only as a story device, just as C.S. Lewis (a Christian!) used astrology (the centaurs in "Prince Caspian") and spells (Lucy in "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader") in the "Chronicles of Narnia." Moreover, it is made fun of!
I hope you enjoy this excellent continuation of the "Harry Potter" saga, which raises more questions about the whole saga overall. When you are done, pick up "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and continue.
Rating:
Summary: The Best of the Best
Review: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is the best of the best. It's about a boy who finds out he's a wizard (in the first book) and goes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This boy, Harry Potter, has two best friends named Ron and Hermoine. There is a convicted murderer on the loose and they're trying to get him. Harry lives with his terrible aunt and uncle who has to sign a form to go to a town called Hogsmeade but he blows up his aunt once removed instead. Ron's rat "Scabbers" turns out to be an anamagus (can change into an animal). He betrayed Harry's parents. Harry's 'defense against the dark arts' teacher was Harry's dad's best friend. So was the convicted murderer and scabbers. Harry's mom and dad were killed by an evil wizard named Voldemort (he who must not be named). I liked the book because it had adventure, imagination, and it was really 'coolio'. Your only hint as to how it ends is that Harry's laughing hysterically and that he got the form signed!
Rating:
Summary: ...........AbOuT tHe BoOk..........
Review: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" In the book "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" There are three main characters Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger. Harry runs away from the Dursleys from an uncontrolled attack against his Aunt Marge. Harry goes to his closest and gets all his material to go to Hogwarts. When he got all his stuff he left the Dursleys. Then when Harry was at the end of his driveway he saw an enormous shadow next to the Dursleys house. At that moment he took out his wand and said "Lumos" then at that moment a large flam came out so he could see the enormous creature. Then at that moment The Knight bus came down to picks him up. Harry asks if the bus driver would talk him to Diagon Alley. There he would stay at Leaky Cauldron Then when it was time to go to Hogwarts Harry meets up with his friends. On the way Harry finds out that there is an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban. His name is Sirius Black. Once Harry was at Hogwarts Professor Dumbledore tell everyone at Hogwarts that there would be Dementors, which will guard Hogwarts. Then when The Deputy Headmistress Professor Mcgonagall told everyone in the 3ed are able to go to hogsmeade. Harry was unable to because he didn't get his signature from Mr. Dursley. Ron's two older brothers found out that Harry was unable to go so they gave him Marauder's map that tells him were are the teacher in the school are and the many ways to get into Hogsmeade. When Hagrid griffin attacks Draco Malfoy, The griffin other none as Buckbeak was sentenced to be assassinated. Harry, Ron, and Hermione uses the cloak of invisibility to watch the griffin be assassinated but Ron's Rat Scabber jumped out of his pocket and ran toward the willow tree, Then Harry saw the enormous creature running after Ron's Rat. Then Harry, Ron, and Hermione ran into the tree to see Sirius Black. Then Professor R.J. Lupin the dark arts teacher tells Harry that Sirius black didn't kill his parents. He said it was Scabber other none as Peter Pettigrew. Then Professor Lupin told Harry that Scabber is "Animagus" and he told him that Sirius black is "Animagus" that means that you are able to transfer in different kinds of animals. Then Professor Snape came up and he told Harry to not listen to what they are staying. Then Sirius black got his wand and said " Expelliarmus" Then Professor Snape body was throwing against the wall. Then Harry started to believe that it was Peter Pettigrew who betrayed James Potter. When it was time for Harry to aboard Hogwarts express when he was going home Sirius black sent him a message telling him that he bought the firebolt and tell him that Ron could keep the owl because of what happened to Scabber and he wrote a note that next time he would be able to visit hogsmeade and Harry find out that Sirius black is his godfather
Rating:
Summary: Harry Potter
Review: "Sirius Black escaped to come after you?" Imagine a top-security prisoner escaping prison to come after you. In the fantasy book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling, a top-security prisoner escapes from the most protected magical prison, Azkaban, to come after the one and only, Harry Potter-or at least that's what everyone thinks. Everyone thinks that Sirius Black got into prison because twelve years ago, he betrayed Harry's parents, Lily and James Potter, after Sirius became their "Secret-Keeper." He "betrayed" them by telling the Dark Lord, Voldemort, where they were so Voldemort could kill the Potters. But Voldemort had only killed Harry's parents-and that's why Harry is famous-for being such a young baby and not dying when Voldemort tried to kill him. Later, Sirius hurt twelve people using magic, and that's why he is in prison. But it turns out that Sirius was only after Peter Pettigrew, the real person who betrayed Lily and James and killed twelve people out on the street. And that's who Sirius has been going after-not Harry, but Peter.
This is the best book I have ever read. I kept wanting to keep reading it on and on and not put it down. It's very interesting and surprising. It was a page-turner. This book had many surprises in it. When I found out who Sirius was really going after and why, I was shocked. He was going after Peter Pettigrew, who "killed" himself after Sirius "blew up" the people on the street. Peter was one of the people who died. But he's an Animagi, wich is wizards or witches who can turn into animals. So Peter turned into his Animagi character, a rat, and cut off his index finger wich was all people could find left of him. Later, he became a pet in Ron's(Harry's best friend) family-only so he could get the news of Voldemort, if he had enough power to rise again so Peter could kill Harry for him and be back in Voldemort's crew. It was really Peter who blew up the people on the street and transformed into a rat so he wouldn't have to go to prison, wich Sirius had been blamed for. Every chapter left a shocking ending. More than half way through the book, Ron awoke with a startle. Only because, Sirius, had been above him, with a knife, and the drapes of his four-poster cut up. The real reason was because he was looking for Ron's rat, Scabbers, wich is really Peter, trying to kill him. But no one else had known why Sirius had done that. I recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy books and thrilling, page-turning chapters. This book was really great, being my third time reading it, and I would like to read it again, still getting surprised. I have enjoyed this book and I think that fantasy lovers will enjoy it too.
Rating: 
Summary: A uselessly complicated plot among a lot of deja vu...
Review: "Wisdom entereth not into a malicious mind, and science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul. (Francois Rabelais, c. 1494-1553, Gargantua and Pantagruel, bk. II, 8) As a child in his late thirties, I used to read Harry Potter every time I took a plane back home. His adventures would help me to kill time during the 9 hours flight to Europe. I must say I enjoyed the first volume of the series enormously, although I was disappointed by the denouement, which I found both laborious and quite predictable. The next year, I spent a couple of pleasant hours with the second volume too, but already most of the novelty was gone. I found that Rowling was quite unable to find new humorous details to lend a magical and poetic atmosphere to her narrative like the living photographs, the owl messengers etc., that had contributed so much to the charm of the "Sorcerer's Stone". The end of the story resembled that of the first volume in its predictability and complicated clumsiness. The third volume as it were brought all Rowling's weaknesses as a writer to a head, something I suspected when I noticed that the book was thicker that the preceding volumes. To tell the whole truth, I didn't bother to read the last chapter because I was thoroughly bored with the book and I left it on the floor of the plane. Needless to say, I didn't buy any more books by Rowling to enliven my following plane trips. What is wrong with the prisoner of Azkaban? My greatest criticism concerns the plot: it is so complicated that in the end the author is obliged to resort to the worst of all literary tricks: she has the characters explain the whole thing to the reader. This happens near the end of the book when the whole bunch is gathered in a haunted house in Hogsmeade, the wizarding village across the lake from Hogwart. I got completely lost in the lengthy and convoluted stories of the characters and came to the conclusion that Rowling was simply a bad writer running out of steam. The Prisoner of Azkaban is totally devoid of freshness and magic, it is a 100% deja vu thing. As a matter of fact, the atmosphere of the whole story is rather gloomy and dark. Clearly what you have here is an adult's world, not a children's world. It is also in keeping with what the author has said about the series, that it would become darker and darker... Other reviewers (for I am not the only one who finds this book a piece of rubbish !)have pointed to the use of a time machine by Hermione as a major flaw in the plot and I agree with them. In the previous episodes, I had also found Harry's invisibility clothes to be a kind of "deus ex machina" which made things just too easy for Rowling to round off her plot. I really had the impression that Rowling was writing just to sustain her reputation and keep the whole hugely lucrative Harry Potter circus going, while hammering the whole dubious witchcraft thing into her young readers'brains: the same oversimplified characters with the same stereotyped reactions, the same endless Quidditch matches, the same dreary mineral settings (talk of a book that brings children closer to nature!), the same laboured denouement. It is a routine! But it must be a highly hypnotic routine otherwise...how cold one explain the Hary Potter cult? What I find specially disappointing is Rowling's inability to describe a place or a character. The whole book is just dialogue and action, with minimum vocabulary. When I was 12, I read Rosny Aine's "La Guerre du feu"("The Quest for Fire"), a book full of long but enthralling descriptions of prehistoric swamps, mountains and forests: that is a real adventure book, believe me! Then and more importantly, there is the dubious PC ideology underlying the story. John Granger, in his "Hidden Key to Harry Potter" (I haven't read the book but I listened to the author on the Jeff rense radio program)cites the following passage as evidence that Rowling teaches children to take moral decisions: Dumbledore tells Harry: "Now you have to choose between what is good and what is just easy". For me, this is the best proof that there is an ethical flaw in the book, for any attentive person will recognize that the choice should be one between good and evil! And what about the pervasive elitism of the magician horde? Their inexplicable use of money and gold? In the "Prisoner of Azkaban", I was bothered by the buying sprees (and drinking-bouts!)of Harry Potter's friends in Hogsmeade: is the author reminding her readers-in a not too subtle manner-to be good consumers? But what really angers me is the curriculum of the school: the children are taught practical skills but they are not taught any philosophy or religion to help them use these skills wisely. In effect Rowling seems to be telling her readership that you can have science without morality. Buy your child one of Tove Jansson's books for a change. Or have him/her read the Chronicles of Narnia by Christian author C.S. Lewis.
Rating: 
Summary: A bit of a stumble, but a worthwhile read
Review: "Chamber of Secrets" is one of my favorite books of all time, and I also loved "Sorcerer's Stone", but in the third book of the Harry Potter series Rowling doesn't dazzle as much as her first two books did. Don't get me wrong, this is a good book - and definitely worth reading - but it loses something. How many times is Harry Potter going to sneak out of the dormitory/school and not get expelled? It seems like he is constantly letting Gryffindor down only to triumph in the end. I hope that book 4 revitalizes the series, because I would hate to see such a wonderful thing get bogged down in formula and cliche. And I didn't really like the ending. It's a bit confusing and seems to be trying too hard. But the very end comes back a bit and leaves you with a satisfied feeling - so all we have to do now is wait impatiently for book 4.
Rating:
Summary: by far the best of the first 3 Harry Potter books
Review: "Harry Potter & the prisoner of Azkaban" is, in my opinion, by far the best of the first 3 Harry Potter books. First of all, it's longer than the first 2 & makes for an excellent, satisfying, quite long read. Second, the first 2 were also very interesting & imaginative, but this one has all sorts of twists & turns & strange subplots that make it gripping. Third, it's extremely funny: the new classes that the third year (by now) students have to attend...Hagrid's attempts to being a teacher, Hermione's extreme anxiety when it comes to studying & getting good results...all these stories & many others in the book, will make you laugh out loud several times. Also, the ending is extremely unexpected, turns the whole story around, and shows what a good writer Joan Rowlings is.
Rating:
Summary: "A very exciting, unpredictable fantasy."
Review: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is a really good book. It is the third of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, and it is as good, if not better than the first two. Harry starts his third year at Hogwart's Wizarding School with his best friends, Ron and Hermione. Their adventures begin strong and don't let up until the last page is turned. As usual, Harry is faced with many conflicts. His main focus, however, is the dangerously exciting sport of Quidditch. The Gryffindor house has a good chance of winning the house cup this year. It is obvious that Rowling used a lot of imagination when he created the sport called Quidditch, intended for wizards to play. After reading three of Rowling's creative adventures, I can't wait to see what is up her sleeve for the fourth book. These page turners could keep the interest of all ages of readers, however, I would recommend reading the first two books before starting the third. Many books can be difficult to follow or imagine. The Harry Potter books, however, are so detailed, yet simple that the book will come alive in the reader's mind. If you want a book that will keep your interest throughout the whole story, I strongly suggest "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban."
Rating:
Summary: Harry Potter Sweeps You Away With This Magical Novel!
Review: "Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban" is a very good book. It is my absolute favorite. J.K. Rowling takes you through the magical world of Harry Potter and his friends. You can relate to many of the characters, including Professor Lupin. But if you really want to know what happens, just buy this book on Amazon.com!
Rating:
Summary: The best Harry Potter yet - and NOT a lure to the occult
Review: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is definitely Rowling's best yet. Longer, denser, and more complex than the first two titles in the series, "Azkaban" has even better characters (I loved Professor Lupin - hope to hear much more of him in future books), a wonderful plot that ties up even the most seemingly trivial details, and all the humor, suspense, adventure, and clever touches we've come to expect from the Hogwarts tales. I'm more and more impressed with each new book - now I can't wait for the fourth. I was delighted to hear it would be even longer than "Azkaban," because as the books get longer, they seem to get even better. To those who think Rowling is encouraging the occult, I say that the world she has created is clearly a fantasy. Children aren't any more likely to think they can find Platform Nine and Three Quarters to board the Hogwarts Express than they are to think they'll just walk through the back of a closet and find Narnia. In Rowling's world good and evil are clearly defined, and good is definitely championed. Evil is never made heroic or glamorous; though it can be scary, that's as it should be, and those who fight it always find the help they need. (To join the efforts of people who support freedom to read Harry Potter, visit mugglesforharrypotter.com.) Read Harry Potter's adventures, alone or with your child or parent. You'll be missing something fantastic if you don't.
|
