Harry Potter - Book Series

I have always heard about Harry Potter but had neither read the books nor seen the movies then. In May 2018, I wanted to try reading it out for Manasa. I had no idea that I would end up reading all the 7 books in the series in the next 5 months. Mostly we read it only during the bed time at night. But on many days, I used to read it during day times even when my daughter is not around. That much interesting it was.

What an experience this reading has given me! 

While reading 6th & 7th books, almost all of us can guess that Snape must be a positive character. But that beautiful love story between Snape & Lily was a surprise. Even after finished reading the book, Snape & his love was buzzing in my mind for few days. The actor perfectly suits the role and his expression when he says the historic dialogue “Always!” was superb.

  

Also the characterization of Dumbledore was brilliant. From the first chapter, we surely love him. But in the 6th & 7th books, especially in the 7th book, the author successfully confuses us in judging his character.

The interesting twist in the characterization was of Sirius Black. Oh God, my heart went out for Harry when he died. The cute gigantic Hagrid, poor Kreature, unique Tobby, interesting Luna, cunning Umbridge, naughty Peeves, every professor and in fact, all the characters were created with marvel. The uniqueness of every character amazes us. 

      

And the main characters Harry, Ron & Hermoine. These three share fair share of misunderstandings too between them like real friends would do. Also the adventures were equally shared between these three, justifying the importance of the characters. But Manasa couldn’t accept Hermoine loving Ron instead of Harry. (Tears of joy smiley)

After completing the book, Manasa laughingly says “Amma, you didn’t understand the story on first few days. You said Voldemort is a good person and as he is dead, Dumbledoor, Mcgonagall & Hagrid all were crying.”  I was like “(Tears of joy smiley) Is it? Did I? I don’t even remember that. May be, yes, I must have. (Grinning smiley)”. Because like I mentioned in my old blog post “Madrasi da”, I am not a peter girl, but a pakka Madras Tamil girl. I am not used to reading English novels, at least definitely not in recent years. But when I started reading the book further and more, I understood the characters and story better. In fact later on the journey, I understood many little nuances in the story. (Cool smiley)

There are Indian named characters like Parvati, Padma Patil, Nagini etc. Is it because J.K.Rowling is a British writer? Or may be other country names (characters) also used in the book, which apparently I cannot identify. 

While reading and after finished reading it, I got the thought like how interesting it would be, if we too had only one school like Hogwards and all of us must go to the same school, so that both our parents and we go the same school and learn under the same teachers. It would be interesting, right?

Another interesting discussion between my daughter & me would happen when we finished reading a book and watch the respective movie. It would include what were the differences between the book & the movie (movie was different in many aspects) and how the movie matched our imagination while we read it.

Overall it gave a great experience reading the series, as we (me, my daughter & the book) spent a lot of time together and it excited me very much.