Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix
by J.K. Rowling
Having kept to a schedule of one book a year for the first four books in the series, Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix took JK Rowling a little longer to get out, with the book finally appearing in 2003. At nearly 900 pages, it would end up being the longest book in the series, following the lives of the three friends, Harry, Hermione and Ron, as they experience their 5th year at Hogwarts.
Despite the centrality to the plot of magic/wizards and the battle between good and evil, the deeper appeal of the book is that it’s a boarding school novel: about wonderful teachers you love and horrible ones who treat you unfairly; about the ups and downs of relationships with friends and with kids who don’t seem to like you—or those who you don’t yet know how they feel about you. Age 15/16 is also the year kids in the UK have to deal with the stress of sitting important exams: GCSEs or ‘General Certificate of Secondary Education,’ known as O or Ordinary Levels in JK Rowling’s day. It’s no surprise that teenage wizards aren’t off the hook and have to sit stressful OWLs or ‘Ordinary Wizarding Level’ exams in the summer term at Hogwarts.
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“It’s all about the War on Terror as far as I’m concerned. I read this book shortly before I became director of Liberty and you might say I’m someone who’s a little unwell and thinks the TV is talking to me, but to me it’s a thinly veiled metaphor for the War on Terror. The Ministry of Magic is raining down in various draconian ways in response to a very serious threat from the dark Lord Voldemort. Early on in the book we see that the owls – who are a means of communication – are being intercepted to and from Hogwarts School – so that’s your increased surveillance. Poor old Harry is wrongfully accused of something and is up before a kangaroo commission where every trick in the book is used against him: they change the time of the hearing, and there’s no proper due process, and that’s very reminiscent of some of the secret commissions that sprang up in Britain during the War on Terror, this attempt to bypass traditional British justice as we understand it.” Read more...
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