Author: J.K. Rowling
ISBN: 9780747542155
Publisher: Scholastic
Copyright: 1999
Genre: Fantasy
Age
Range: 13 - 16
Reader’s Annotation: Harry Potter with his friends
investigate the fugitive Sirius Black as they delve deeper into Harry’s family
history.
Plot Summary: The book opens up with Harry back at the
Dursley’s. Muggle TV has been publicizing a prisoner escape by a man named
Black. Aunt Marge insults Harry’s parents on a visit and he involuntary inflates her. He takes the
Knight Bus to Diagon Alley to await the beginning of school. Cornelius Fudge,
the Minister for Magic, warns Harry against the underage use of magic and magic
in front of Muggles. The night before he is supposed to leave for Hogwarts, Harry
is told that Sirius Black is a convicted murderer who might want to hurt Harry
due to his connection with Voldemort. On the trip to Hogwarts, the train
stops and a Dementor boards causing Harry to faint. The new Defence Against the
Dark Arts teacher, Professor Lupin, fights it back. The Dementors will be
guarding the perimeter of Hogwarts. Harry has many run ins with the Dementors
including a Quidditch match that lands Harry in the infirmary and his broom in
the trash heap as it was destroyed by the Whomping Willow. To fight off the
Dementors, Lupin teaches him the Patronus Charm.
With the
help of George and Fred Weasley and The Marauder's Map Harry is able to sneak
into Hogsmeade. He walks around wearing his cloak of invisibility. Passing by some
of his teachers, he overhears them and Fudge explain that Black was the
Potter’s secret keeper. It must have been Black that betrayed them to Voldemort.
Afterward in the pursuit, Black killed thirteen Muggles and his former friend
Peter Pettigrew. Ron accuses Hermione's cat Crookshanks of eating his rat,
Scabbers. Harry gets an expensive broom, a late-model Firebolt, from an unknown
source. Late one night, Harry looks at The Marauder's Map and sees Peter Pettigrew. He follows it to find nothing but
trouble with Snape.
Hagrid
becomes the Magical animals teacher. During one lesson about hippogriffs, Draco Malfoy provoke a hippogriffs
named Buckbeak into attacking him. Hagrid tries to save Buckbeak, but he has
been sentenced to death. Soon after, Scabbers reappears. A big black dog
appears and attacks Ron with Scabbers in tow and drags them both down
underneath the Whomping Willow through a tunnel into the Shrieking Shack. Harry
and Hermione follow. It is revealed that the dog is Sirius Black. Lupin enters
and explains the past that the real secret keeper was Peter Pettigrew. Peter
Pettigrew betrayed the Potters and Black was framed. Snape tries to intervene
but is knocked out by Harry. Lupin and Black transform Pettigrew back into
human form and prepare to kill him, but they are stopped by Harry. Harry wants
to clear Black, his godfather, from any wrong doing. On the way back to the
castle, Lupin begins transforming into a werewolf. Pettigrew escapes again as
Black prevents Lupin from attacking the kids. Dementors approach and all three
lose consciousness.
When they wake up in the hospital, Harry, Ron, and
Hermione are told that Black has been sentenced to receive the Dementor's kiss,
which removes the soul of the recipient. Dumbledore advises Hermione and Harry
to use Hermione's time-turner. It is a device she has been using to take more
classes. Now Harry and Hermione have to try to save Buckbeak and stop Black
from receiving the Dementor's kiss.
Critical Evaluation: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third novel in
the Harry Potter series. It has
won the the 1999 Whitbread Children's Book Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the
2000 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel, and was nominated for other awards
like the Hugo. It sold over 68,000 copies in three days and millions worldwide.
It is a must have in modern youth fiction. The reason to include this specific
Harry Potter book into a young adult collection is its subject matter. In this
volume Harry is facing the truth about his parents, from the facts of their
murder to the possibility of new family. These are real issues that some teens
have to deal with. While they may not be at a magical wizard school, they are
trying to figure out who their parents were and who they want to be. As Harry
the character has grown up, so do the teens that read these books. J.K. Rowling
does a great job of maturing Harry throughout the books to a believable and
relatable level.
Author Information: Born in Yate, England,
on July 31, 1965, J.K. Rowling came from humble economic means before writing
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, a children's fantasy novel. The work was
an international hit and Rowling wrote six more books in the series, which sold
into the hundreds of millions and was adapted into a blockbuster film
franchise. In 2012, Rowling released the non-Potter novel The Casual Vacancy.
Source - http://www.biography.com/people/jk-rowling-40998#awesm=~oDHabRZpRsR6EV
Curriculum Ties: English, Social Studies
Challenge Issues: Magic
Booktalk Ideas: Family – One can start talking about
different types of family members ending with the godfather as a transition to
Harry’s story.
No comments:
Post a Comment