The real fear of children giving up hour upon hour to tv, computer games and more recently the Internet had grown tremendously over the years. As technology has improved more children become more dependent upon activities that require little or no creative input from the young mind. But soon after the scare of a new couch potato generation came HARRY POTTER, a young, orphaned wizard who entered the world of fiction.
The first craze of Harry Mania hit in 1999. Rowling?s weaving of the magical books had somehow captured the imaginations of millions of readers of all ages. She?d gotten the children and adults of the world reading with passion and suspense.
The release of the fourth book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, has illustrated another way of enchanting young minds with the power of fictional novels. When, predictably, bookstores everywhere stocked the 4th book, the children flooded into the stores dragging along very willing credit card-holding parents as it is a book for all minds, young or old. It invites children and adults to take a break from passive entertainments and experiment with the first and the original, stories written by a very talented writer.
First of all, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a massive book, more than twice the reading commitment of the previous books. A book of this size seems like it could be a daunting challenge for the younger reader who might not have ever picked up a book this thick in their lives before, yet, this too is part of the magic. With most thick books you have either read or see people reading you soon hear that they have been not been finished through lack of interest and just dumped in a box ready for the next jumble sale. But unlike these, The four JK Rowling books are treated like treasure, the first thing you come across on a childs book shelf.
The 640 page long Harry Potter sustains a magical story of underage wizards over a whole school year and the usual last two weeks of summer holidays. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is all of the things the three earlier books ever were and more. The Goblet of Fire is filled with the excitement, warmth and humor that has rapidly become Rowling's signature. But as the weight of the book would suggest, there is more here, as well.
In The Goblet of Fire, Harry is 14 and seems almost ready to take on the wizarding world once again. Rowling had warned that book four would have a darker nature than the previous three, but I'm not sure this is an accurate description as all of the Potter books have had elements that are darker than your average children's book. I think this is mainly why these books have been so extremely popular. Harry's brushes with death are very realistic and this magic makes his heroics all the more believable. Harry spent a good part of book one locked in a closet by his nearest living relatives, the Dursleys, and by book three, Harry was nearly murdered by one of Lord Voldemort?s ("You-Know-Who") followers, Peter Pettigrew only to be saved just in time by his long lost godfather, Sirius Black, The Prisoner of Azkaban and his own patronus.
Of course, dastardly and determined characters like Voldemort are not easily put out of their misery and the unspeakable you know who provides the plot for most of the action and tension in Goblet of Fire. Since Harry is the only person, wizard or muggle, who has been able to survive Voldemort's curse, it stands to reason that he'll stop at very little to get Harry out of the way. Whatever it takes. As the story progresses, Rowling introduces some engaging new characters, some world class Quidditch and a lot more enchanting entertainment.
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