Book Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3)
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What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that Rowling continues her great
plotting and pacing, but edgier themes appeal more to older
kids. For most of the school year, Harry believes he is marked
for death and stalked by an escaped prisoner. He also battles a
creature of kids' worst nightmares: the Dementors are
black-robed floating beings that suck out happiness and feed on
your worst fears, which is why Harry hears the sound of his
mother's last scream when he sees them. While this can be tough
for young and sensitive readers, the bright spot is the Boggart
lesson in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Boggarts can turn into
what a person fears most, but the kids learn to yell
"Ridiculous!" and turn it into something to laugh at.
Families can talk about conquering fears. What can you learn from the way Harry and his friends learn to defeat the Boggarts? The Dementors? If you had a map of your school with everyone on it, what would you do with it? What is the significance of Harry's relationship to Sirius? Did you see the plot twists coming or were they a complete surprise?
Common Sense Media Review
Rowling has sidestepped the usual series-writer trap of
sticking so closely to a successful formula that each book is
just more of the same. With Harry about to enter adolescence,
the series too seems to be changing; this entry is darker, more
complex, and morally more ambiguous than the first two. As he
is forced by the Dementors to confront his parents' deaths
directly, Harry, always so cool in the earlier books, is more
emotionally unstable. Unlike the static characters in other
series, Harry is getting older, with all that entails.
The author is a master of careful plotting. The surprising climax of the story, after many twists and turns, brings together numerous seemingly unrelated subplots and reveals a bit more about Harry's past. Rowling is rumored to have planned out the whole story of the series in advance (seven total). She has said that she has already written the final chapter of the final book -- and the planning shows.
The complexity is so great that at times it inspires rereading. Late in the story, for example, a time-travel element allows the reader to see the same events twice from different points of view, and many readers find themselves flipping back in the book with a sudden "aha" of understanding. But Rowling knows her readers -- though she stretches their intellects, she never loses them.
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