Harry Potter Still Survives (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling)

Member Name: jessyclown

Product:	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J. K. Rowling
Date:	22/05/02 (272 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good to read, Adventure, Exciting

Disadvantages: Too long, Slow to start

Once a struggling single mum J K Rowling is now probably the best known living children’s writer. So far there are 4 novels to her name and there are more promised. Unfortunately we are told that book five will not be out this year but we have to wait until 2003 for the next one. They say it isn’t writer’s block, who knows?

The novels are all about an orphan boy called Harry Potter who has been brought up by his cruel uncle and aunt never knowing that he was special. When he was 11 Harry was invited to start at the school his parents had chosen Hogwarts School of Wizardry. Harry had not realised that he was in fact a magical person, a wizard. The other thing that Harry had not known was that his parents had been killed by the evil wizard Voldemort, who had failed to kill Harry at the same time. When he hadn’t killed Harry he had become weak and ineffectual and so Harry was now his biggest enemy.

In each of the Harry Potter books we follow Harry’s Progress through Hogwarts School. These books are typical boarding school books with the children running around with a lot of freedom and doing the things that children would love to do. Where these books differ from the boarding school genre is the magic. In each of the novels Harry faces danger and has to use his magic against more experienced wizards than him.

The forth book is called Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire. This was the hardest of the books to get into reading, as the start didn’t grip me. The story starts with a Quiddich world cup. Quiddich is a game played by wizards on broomsticks. It seems that the whole of the wizard world all convene on a spot in England to watch this match. A lot of effort is put into stopping ordinary people, muggles, realising what is going on. We are also aware that Voldemort is gaining strength and influence and will be a big danger to Harry.

When Harry gets to school again after the world cu
p there is a special, dangerous competition going to take place at his school involving one pupil from each of three wizard school. The pupils who entered themselves had to be a lot older than Harry is and so he does not even contemplate entering. When the names are entered for the competition the ones to take part are given out by the Goblet of Fire. After the three names were named a forth name came out of the Goblet and it was, surprise surprise Harry's name. Each of the wizards was duty bound to perform various tasks. This competition took part over the school year.

Harry has to work hard at the tasks involved in this competition. He has his two best friends, Ron Weasly, and Hermione Granger, to help him work out how to tackle the various difficulties. Needless to say Harry encounters many dangers and manages to avoid being killed by Voldemort again a close shave this time. Voldemort ends this book being stronger again with his band of evil followers regrouped ready for wizard world domination.

There are wizards around trying to influence Harry in many ways and we can not tell who are good and who are bad. Someone had entered Harry’s name into the competition and it wasn’t Harry. Whoever had entered Harry wanted him to come to a sticky end. We can not tell who it was until at the end.

What seemed very strange to me was that the pupils from the other wizard schools stayed at Hogwarts for the whole school year rather than going back to there own between the contests. Not only were the contestants there but the other pupils who were not taking part and their head teachers.

The world of Harry Potter is filled with many strange and mythical creatures but these are never seen by the muggles (ordinary people) even though they occupy the same world. These animals might be quite benign or extremely dangerous but only to the wizards. Ordinary people are in very little danger from the magic world.

T
here are many holes in the stories if you are to examine them for holes but they are written for the enjoyment of children. This book is written in an easy to read style. Once past the first 100 pages I found this book to be quite gripping. My son, aged 10 has not managed to read the whole of this book as it is just too long. Of the four Harry Potter books written so far I feel this is the hardest to read. It would be better if it was a lot shorter saving some of the adventures for the other books yet to be written. I believe that there are three more books due to be written. I am looking forward to reading them but I hope they are not as long and hard to get into as the Goblet of Fire. I hope J K Rowling has not got writer’s block and the next three books all come out soon. If they take too long I am sure many of the readers now waiting will have lost interest.

If you haven’t read any of the Harry Potter books they are worth reading for a bit of light relief. It is worth starting with the first one, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, to get into the terms and the people in the stories.

I have enjoyed all four books so far and can not wait for book five to be published.

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