The third book in the dazzling fantasy series written by J. K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was the pivotal book that separated the fans from the fads. Much darker, cryptic, and harbouring crucial details than Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, the third book in the magical Harry Potter series is filled with more monsters, more magic, more laughs, and more action.
Harry Potter is getting ready for this third at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and nothing could be more exiting. But, unbeknown to Harry, the magical world is in a state of panic. A convicted and dangerous murderer named Sirius Black has made history by becoming the first wizard to escape from the impregnable fortress that is Azkaban, the wizard prison. Before Harry begins his journey back to Hogwarts, he is informed that Black was a huge supporter of Lord Voldemort and has escaped from Azkaban to find Harry and kill him. Promising himself that he will not go looking for trouble this year, trouble still seems to find Harry at school as a series of misfortunes and close encounters add to the anxiety as well as the new security measures that now surround the school.
The first two books, Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets successfully engaged an audience and established the story, the characters, and the phenomenon that is the Harry Potter series. Prisoner of Azkaban is the book where the children’s fantasy and adventure is stripped away and replaced with crucial details about Harry’s past as well as a real story.
This was the book where the bigger story began to evolve and it wasn’t written like the first two, as some kiddie novel that told the tale of three friends having countless adventures. Everything became bigger and more adult in the third book. I remember that this was the book where quite a few of the readers of the series lost interest and gave up, mainly because it ceased to be a “children’s” book and suddenly became darker and scarier.
It’s through reading this book that you discover that the characters are growing up and, therefore, their adventures are changing and there is a sense that something much bigger is waiting to make itself known. There are no students to save from monstrous snakes, no enchantments to get past in order to beat the bad guy to the stone that gives eternal life, Prisoner of Azkaban is merely Harry, Ron and Hermione discovering truth and learning as they grow. It may seem empty in comparison to its predecessors, but I think Prisoner of Azkaban is the book that separates the fans from the fads. Those that choose to persevere are the true fans and those that give up were merely curious to see what all the hype was about.
We are introduced to some new characters in book three: Remus Lupin, Hogwarts’ new Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher with a dark secret of his own, Buckbeak the Hippogriff, one of Hagrid’s many pets, and of course Sirius Black, the escaped convict who is the classic example of plot misdirection.
Filled with monsters, prophecies, magic, action, comedy, and truth, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a wonderful read that really sets the series up. This is the book where everything properly follows on and the real story starts to unfold.
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