Harry Potter: the Complete Series

"The writer is really imaginative, it’s different from other books I’ve read. It’s funny and sad at times. It’s emotional when someone dies, it’s a shock to the heart. Harry has to keep getting away from Voldemort who is trying to kill him. What I like about this series is that at the end everything comes together, like pieces of a jigsaw. I read the series when I was younger with my parents, but now I’m older, I understand a bit more the different parts of the story I didn’t get back then. Anyway, everybody has already read this series, so I’m not going to explain more. Once you start reading it, you don’t want to stop. Sometimes I read it in the car on the way to school, and I get really disappointed when I see school, because I have to stop reading and put the book down. Then I read again on the way home. There are some really funny parts, with Fred and George who are probably my favourite characters."

"The books are about Harry Potter , of course, and so Ron and Hermione are his sidekicks, but I’ve always felt that Hermione was unjustly side-lined. She’s clearly the most intelligent member of those three. She’s the brightest witch of her generation. I really connected with her as a smart kid who was teased at school for being too smart. But she has all these amazing characteristics that the group needs to get through their adventures. It’s always Hermione who comes up with the answer; she knows the facts, and she has the great ideas. I think that the Harry Potter books are really mystery stories. I’m sure that J K Rowling was interested in mystery way before the Robert Galbraith books. She loves that plot in the same way that I do. But it’s so clear that Hermione is the best detective in the group, and she’s forging ahead a lot of the time. “I’ve always felt that Hermione was unjustly side-lined. She’s clearly the most intelligent member of those three!” Hermione is also a good example of the role that—a lot of the time—female characters play in books. They’re always just the friend, even though they’re much more exceptional than the male protagonist. They have to work hard just to be his sidekick, when really the book should have been about them. Good! It should be. Being smart is brilliant!"