Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2003)

By J K Rowling
The Harry Potter books have never been able to live up to the standards of the books I read when I was a girl, but I still enjoy them nonetheless. Except for Harry, he needs to calm down a bit. In this book he’s hit the teen angst zone, and really, why does Hogwart’s seems to have a Professor for every (magical) subject under the sun but no counsellor?? In the last book Harry saw a fellow student get deaded, and all sorts of terrible things happened to him, but does anyone try and help him work through his feelings?? Of course not.

In this book the evil wizard Voldemort is back from the semi-dead, and deep divisions have formed in the wizarding world – the official Ministry of Magic line is that V’s resurrection is a load of baloney, and so they send a particularly nasty Professor to Hogwarts in order to keep Dumbledore and the rest of all the teachers and students in line. However, there is growing evidence to suggest that V is amassing his forces in anticipation of a final showdown…presumably this will occur in the seventh book, which will be Harry’s last year at Hogwarts.
I think I actually enjoyed this book more than the others, as it was more plot driven, and I didn’t find it particularly dark – a criticism of the Potter books which seems to be growing. I’m not sure why, it’s not like children’s books have ever been all sweetness and light, people get killed or suffer terribly in them all the time. Mind you, I’m still cross that When the wind blows was on our primary school reading list, there must be a generation of people out there who were scarred for life by that book.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Gulliver's Travels (2004)

By Jonathan Swift
This is an odd kind of book. The author describes his (accidental) voyages to Lilliput, where everyone is about 6 inches high, and to Brobdingnag, where everyone is about 60 feet high. There is no plot, as such – the author merely gets stranded on said islands, is captured by the locals, learns to communicate with them, and eventually finds his way back to England again.

It is quite interesting to see the details Gulliver thought to include, such as the various punishments passed on criminals, court intrigues, exactly how many Lilliputian sheep were needed to make up a meal for a standard-issue human, the philosophical musings of the respective kings of the realm and so on. Ingenious and very easy to read, but it just didn’t really grab me. I was vaguely expecting talking horse-people, so maybe that was why I was disappointed. I wondered if perhaps it might be more fun to read aloud with children?

Rating: 5 out of 10