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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2 Audio CD)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Book 2 Audio CD)

List Price: $49.95
Your Price: $32.97
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Sequel!
Review: It's an unusual and wonderful thing when a book as magical as 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' can have a sequel be just as good, if better than itself. 'Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets' defintely live up to its predecessor! JK Rowling is obviously one of the top authors out there right now, if not the best. She is most defintely my favorite author right now! Rowling produces another sweeping magical adventure in this second installment of the hit series. The same wit, humor, description, suspense, and magic is still there. I'm guessing that it will always be there after reading the fourth book and discovering it to be even better than the previous three.

The plot is great in this one! I really love how the whole storyline has matured and become darker and more mysterious, generally becoming more fit for teenagers and adults. Children can still enjoy the Harry Potter books, but adults and teenagers will simply love the new maturity in Rowling's writing!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Mystery, action, magic. What will happen to him this time?
Review: It's another year at Hogwarts with Harry Potter. But what is going to happen? With his cloak of invisablity, his wand, and his broom he is ready to go to school or is he? From killer plants to quidditch, he is getting in a lot of trouble. Something strange is happening to everyone but what. With new teachers, friends, and magic what will he do to help? It is up to Harry's skills to see what he can do. In the chamber lies a monster like no other. So deadly it will kill you when it looks at you so watch out. But what is it? His world is getting worse everyday. Will he find out whats happening or die trying. So read the book and find out what will happen in the book Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. This book is a fun book for all ages to read, have fun ,and read Harry Potter books.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: good book but might be a little intense for some kids
Review: It's been a while since I've read this book but I remember liking it pretty well. Lots of very interesting detail but be warned, there are some sections that might be very scary for the younger readers, especially the Chamber of Secrets section. I don't have any children but I think I'd be careful about letting the more nervous types of kids read this book by themselves. I didn't have problems with any of it and maybe most kids these days wouldn't but still, use caution.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Muggles Rejoice! Harry Potter is Back!
Review: It's going to be another great year at Hogwarts, or is it?Wizards and Witches from Muggle families are being attacked by amysterious monster and someone in the school is responsible.

This book though similar in many ways to the first novel is different in just as many ways. In this book you learn quite alot about wizard politics, history and the lives of wizards from the past and present. Though the story line is bewitching, readers may find the story slower moving than The Sorcerer's Stone. There isn't as much of a sense of burden on our hero which makes the story a bit less exciting. In The Sorcerer's Stone, Harry, Hermoine, and Ron were the only ones who could stop a certain someone from stealing something that wasn't his, however in this story everyone wants to know what's going on which makes Harry attempts to solve the mystery seem less significant. Also Harry has to constantly be convinced that he is in danger, so you are not scared about his safety. However the book was an great read. As in book one, it's full of suprises and chock full of laughter and it has an ending that will stun you. Highly Recommended!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I don't know how she does it- but Rowling has scored again!
Review: It's hard not to be swept up in the world of Harry Potter. Fast moving, with a plot that takes the reader on a ride through the rapids of magic, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is one of the best books I have ever read. Among my almost 1,200 other books, Harry Potter shall have a special place. Too, no one can read this book only once! I am on my 3rd time and still delight in reading it! Thank you Ms. Rowling!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: one of my favorite series!!
Review: It's Harry's second year at Hogwarts. While he is at the Dursley's house for the summer, a little elf named Dobby comes to see him. Dobby tells Harry he should not go to Hogwarts this year because something bad will happen. The Dursley's lock Harry in his room because they think he used his magic to interrupt their dinner with some friends. He escapes with Ron and the Weasley twins and stays with their family for the rest of the summer. When the time comes for them to go back to Hogwarts, Ron and Harry can't get through the barrier into Platform 9 and 3/4ths. They decide to use Ron's dad's flying car to follow the train to Hogwarts. When they get there, they get detention for landing in the Womping Willow tree. Since detention, Harry keeps hearing someone whispering about the Chamber of Secrets and Ron's sister, Ginny, goes missing. Harry, Ron, and Hermione have to fight their fears to stop this and save Ginny, including fighting off Ron's fear of spiders, and using a potion to turn into their enemy, Draco Malfoy's friends. To find out what happens read the book!! It is really exciting!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: the Chamber of Secrets
Review: It's Harry's second year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In his last year he met the Dark Lord, Voldemort, and it was bad, but ended OK. This year seems very promising and great - aside from the fact that their new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher is an absolutely annoying person who doesn't know a thing about his work.
But then one day Harry heard voices - and soon after a cat is petrified.
Fear is spreading throughout the school.
There are whispers about a Chamber of Secrets; a hidden chamber built by Salazar Slytherin - and within it is said to dwell a monster.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: It's great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: It's my favorite book in the whole world. Ican't wait to read the next!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Be prepared to any surprise!
Review: It's not excellent. It's delirious. This second volume of Harry Potter's adventures is full of twists and unforeseen, unforeseeable new elements that pop up all the time, around every corner and page of the dark corridors of this bewitched castle and of this book. We are following a line that no one can in any way know before they reach the very point where they are and, even there, they cannot know the next point, the next surprise, the next fright, the next epiphany. Harry Potter disregards every rule you can imagine, and that is a real pleasure because the story is thus a jungle of at times breathtaking new steps in a long pilgrimage through a world that is nothing but a big basket of magical events.

But this book is also a severe criticism of a certain adult world, either the real world of humans, or this world of human relations transposed into the world of wizardry and witchcraft. The bad ones are not outside in the human world, but inside in the magic world. Some have ambition and have to crush the others to realize them and they don't hesitate in front of any crime, lie or misdeed to achieve their goals. Better get the worst and evilest monsters out of their locked chambers than fail in reaching the targets those ambitious people have set to themselves in order to cover up their evilness and their blackmailing domination.

What's refreshing in this book is that salvation comes from some twelve year old kids, because kids are the future of the world, with the discreet support of some adults that are slightly more intelligent than others and have more courage than others, the courage to look for good and to push back evil forces. This makes this book very optimistic about humanity. The real magic is then no longer witchcraft but just human values like love, friendship, truthfulness, faithfulness, intelligence, imagination, visionary insight. This is a book that any adult should be required to have read, studied and analyzed to the very point of understanding it and accepting its moral teachings. Our world would be so much the better if it were so.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Paris Universities II and IX.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Let's take a careful look. . .
Review: It's now been some years since the "Harry Potter" books first came out. Unless I am mistaken, book # 5 is due on shelves soon. In addition, two major motion pictures have now been produced.

During this time, I have been repeatedly asked, as a parent, as a clergyman, and as a student of fantasy literature, what my "opinion" of the series is. After having read all four books, and having seen the first movie, I am now prepared to comment.

Some people, especially those in the conservative Christian camp, decry the books as inherently Satanic, dealing, as they do, with "witchcraft", etc. As a conservative Christian father and clergyman, I must admit that I do NOT agree with this assessment -- an assessment made, all to often, by persons who have not actually read the books in question. Do I understand "why" some would suggest this? Of course I do. The difference, however, lies in the nature of fantasy literature. As can be seen in other fantasy series, (Katherine Kurtz' "Saint Camber" stories come to mind) the characters in the "Harry Potter" stories are endowed at birth with certain gifts, powers, etc., not typically applicable to ordinary persons. Much like "The Force" in the "Star Wars" stories, this power can be used for good or for evil and is, in and of itself, neither. It is this point which firmly seperates "Harry Potter" from those who actually believe in and seek to practice the Dark Arts -- activities which conservative Christians -- rightly -- condemn as anti-Scriptural.

Thus, it is within this deliberate "suspension of belief" that these stories must be judged. Are they good fairy tales???

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is light reading -- without quite the creativity and certainly without the plot of the first volume. I'll grade it as follows:

Plot: C- -- entirely too similar to the first volume to be truly creative. The "house elf" theme was cute, but ultimately ineffective. One almost expected a silly scene with the Dursleys. The flying car??? Nope. More than half of the book said very little, and did not, in this reviewer's opinion, properly further the plot toward the climax. The climax was, I will freely admit, well handled and creative -- it just took far too long to get there, and there was far too little to salvage the rest of the book. And again, the book ends with the loss of the "Defense Against the Dark Arts" professor. (CAUTION: SPOILER!!! This will be an ongoing theme -- and one which is less and less effective.)

Character Development: C -- In the first story, Harry develops quite a relationship with Professor Dumbledore. Yet, in this story, until after the climax, Harry's attitude toward Dumbledore doesn't make sense. Why is he so reluctant to tell this trusted Professor anything at all? Especially considering the support received in the first book? This re-structuring of the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore causes the climax not to make the sort of sense it should. Also never satisfactorally explained is why Hagrid had to be taken away. Yes, he was "set up", so to speak, many years earlier. But the reasons for actually incarcerating him did not make sense to me at all.

Setting: B -- here the author does use a bit of imaginative creativity, but not nearly so much as in the first book. I did enjoy the "Whomping Willow". But overall, the setting is very similar. Not much new here.

Overall, I'll give the book a generous 3 stars. Not as good as the first, but not bad.


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