Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (by JK Rowling)

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I was a huge fan of the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling when they were first published in the late 1990s and early part of the 21st century. I read most of them aloud to my teenage sons as soon as we acquired them, as we could not decide who would read them first. They were excellent books to read aloud - often for hours in a day - but I also enjoyed re-reading them myself just a few years later. And again, when the seventh book was published.

But I hadn’t read them for over ten years; so it was more than time for a re-read. I wondered how I would react, re-reading them from the perspective of an empty-nester, over a decade after the last one was written. I’ve watched the films in the intervening years, and thought them well done; but, other than the first, they didn’t really do justice to the books.

So I’ve just finished reading ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’, fifth in the series, and, I believe, the longest of the books. I last read it in 2007. At 766 pages in hardback, it’s quite a hefty tome; a challenging read for young children. It’s not really suitable for younger children anyway, as the plot is quite dark and very intense in this book.

While each of these books could stand alone, they are much better read in series. I re-read ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ a couple of months ago, and am glad I re-read it so recently. There’s much in this volume that refers back to incidents in the fourth book.

The reader is supposed to be aware that the evil Lord Voldemort returned to his body and summoned his followers at the end of the previous book, in a grim and very dark conclusion. That’s important, because a lot of the story in this book revolves around the fact that the Ministry of Magic is taking the official line that Harry is at best deluded, at worst an attention-seeking liar. Professor Dumbledore, Headmaster of Hogwarts School, believes Harry; and in doing so comes up against some dangerous enemies.

The book begins with Harry, totally fed up, at home with his aunt, uncle and cousin. He’s listening for news of disasters, but day after day nothing happens. His cousin Dudley is terrorising the neighbourhood, and Harry tries to keep away from him… then Dudley is attacked, and Harry, despite disliking his cousin intensely, defends him with his wand.

That leads to a court case at the Ministry of Magic, and the start of a most unpleasant term at Hogwarts. Harry is angry that his friends seem to be ignoring him, and that the Headmaster, Professor Dumbledore, doesn’t tell him what’s going on, or even look at him. Harry’s scar is hurting him far more than it used to. And he’s regularly in detention with the new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dolores Umbridge.

Umbridge is one of JK Rowling’s most unpleasant characters, who has a sadistic delight in causing pain, and has taken an immediate dislike to Harry. However the point is well made that even the nastiest of people are not necessarily followers of Voldemort. The first time I read this I was expecting a teacher or other character to be unmasked as something or someone unexpected, as happened in most of the earlier books. Instead this book is much darker, seeing the wizarding world preparing for a potential terrible reign of the evil ‘dark lord’.

At the same time, Harry’s year are stressed anyway because this is their ‘OWL’ year - Ordinary Wizarding Level exams are taken in each subject, and are clearly the Hogwarts equivalent to the UK GCSE exams, formerly known as O (ordinary) levels.

There are throwaway comments and one-liners that lighten the tension from time to time; the kind of thing that we all appreciated when I read the book aloud, although it’s easy to miss them when reading for the story. And there’s also the beginning of romantic threads; one more thing to add to Harry’s stress as his hormones are rampant and he has no idea how to interpret the highly emotional girl who goes on a date with him.

There’s a lot of fast action in this book, with perhaps too much detail about what spells are cast in the climactic battles that happen towards the end, but it makes for a very exciting story. Even though I had read this book three times before, I could hardly put it down at times. Other times, the tension was so great that I had to take a break from reading.

That’s just a tiny hint of what can be found in this long and intense book. If you find the length of this book daunting, the film version of ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’ is well done. It progresses the storyline and covers the most important parts of the overall story.

But the book has so much more. It's not a young children's book - the issues covered are deep and could be quite disturbing for a young child. But I would recommend it highly to anyone over the age of about twelve who has read and enjoyed the earlier books.

Review copyright 2019 Sue's Book Reviews