The book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone is written by J. K. Rowling and was published in 1997. Said book is the first part of the Harry Potter saga. The main characters are Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They are all eleven years old and are in first grade of Hogwarts school of magic. Harry and Ron are wizards and Hermione is a witch. They don’t know each other until they meet in hogwarts and become friends. As the book continues they all learn new things in the magical world, for instance new spells. Harry is still the most important character in the book. He is ”the boy who lives”. The evil lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents when Harry was a baby. He tried to kill Harry too but failed and lost his powers. It left a lighting bolt shaped scar in Harry’s forehead. Characters felt so real and believable that I myself started to believe in magic a little.
In the beginning of the book Harry lives with his aunt and uncle in England unknowing about the magical world. Harry’s aunt, uncle and cousin are non-magical people or ”muggles”. When Harry is eleven he finds out that he’s a wizard when he gets an invitation to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. Professor Guirrell who teaches defence against the dark arts, tries to steal the philosopher’s stone for lord Voldemort so that he could resurrect. Harry, Ron and Hermione end up in a big adventure when they try to stop professor Guirrells actions. In addition the sorting hat choses Harry in the house of Gryffindor. There he meets the headmistress Minerva McGonagall. Harry also meets and immediately converges to Hogwarts principal Albus Dumbledore. Harry hates throughout the whole book professor of the potions Severus Snape.
The book begins in the summer and lasts the whole school year.
The narrator is all-knowing and stays that way the whole book. The book is fictional and magic is it’s main theme. I think it’s written because the story touches everyone at all age. This book started the world-wide Potter phenomenon. The books message is that everyone can make it in life even though it may not feel like it right now. When Harry lives with his aunt and uncle he is bullied and discriminated little boy and nobody knows him. In the magical world Harry finds out that everyone knows him and his lightning bolt shaped scar.
I liked everything that happened to Harry in Hogwarts. Every chapter about hogwarts were interesting and exciting. The least I liked the beginning of the book where there mostly just sorted out things. I would recommend to all who has watched Harry Potter movies to read them also as books. Books take movies deeper to the world of Hogwarts. The book was familiar to me because I had read it a couple times in finnish earlier. It was still a bit confusing that in this english version many characters had a different names then in the finnish version. Probably book would have been hard to read if I hadn’t known about the story a little beforehand. Entirely the book was magnificent!