Book Report for Harry Potter

Beals 1 Kai Beals Briggs English 10 H P.3 21 October 2016 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter is a fast paced, funny, and interesting book. The main lesson of this book is even though you may think you are useless there is always a surprise around the corner. The setting is in Britain around the 1990’s; some places include: Diagon alley, London (kings cross station), Hogwarts, the Dursley’s home, and other places. The plot involves a boy named Harry Potter. He survives a killing curse that the dark Lord Voldemort tries to cast on him when he was one year-old, but failed. He goes to the school of Hogwarts. The point of view is from Harry’s prospective and the narrator J.K Rowling at some points. There are two external conflicts. First that Harry Potter’s mortal enemy Voldemort wants to come back to kill Harry. This conflict is throughout the series but Harry foils one of his attempts to get his life back. The second conflict is at the beginning when Ron meets Hermione who Ron finds annoying. This is resolved when Harry, Ron, and Hermione become friends after fighting a mountain troll on Halloween, but Ron and Hermione still think each other are annoying but a little less now. There are two internal conflicts. The first internal conflict is during the sorting when Harry has the sorting hat on his head. The sorting hat says he will be great into Slytherin, but Beals 2 Harry does not want to be in Slytherin. Harry keeps on pleading with the hat to not sort him in Slytherin. Another internal conflict is that Harry thinks he is going to be the worst at Hogwarts and that he will be sent home. That is resolved on the first day when Harry realizes many of the people are also starting out for the first time. My favorite passage in the book is chapter 16 “Through the trapped door” where the main characters talk. They just got through the trapped door and Hermione is trying to figure out the first obstacle, and it is devil snare. She says “Devil’s snare, devil’s snare . . . what did professor Sprout say? – It likes the dark and damp - ‘’Then Harry choked “So light a fire!’’ Then Hermione cries “Yes – of course – but there’s no wood?” Then Ron bellows “HAVE YOU GONE MAD? ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?” and then Hermione says “Oh, right!” I thought it was funny because it shows that in a crisis you usually forget what you may know. The saddest part is in chapter 12 “The Mirror of Erised” when Harry finds the mirror and it shows his dead family and it just makes you feel sad for Harry yet happy that Harry got to see his family for the first time. I found two words that I had to look up including Jaunty which means carefree, perky, casually fashionable and Strutting, which means to walk stiff and proud or has some arrogance. One important passage is when Malfoy tries to get Harry expelled but instead it got Harry on his house Quidditch team which is part of irony because the opposite things happen then what the character wanted. An example of an event that happened in my life is in the summer I was at my grandma’s house with my cousins and one of them told me to ask her if we could get in the pool. I knew she would most likely say, what she usually says, no, because there is no parental Beals 3 supervision, but she said go ahead; just keep an eye on the younger cousin. You should read “Harry Potter and the Sorceress’s Stone” because I liked it and I think you would like it.