Word: phoenix
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Scholastic; 870 pages), the sinister Potions teacher Severus Snape gives Harry a lesson in Occlumency, the art of hiding one's thoughts from magical prying. "Only Muggles talk of 'mind reading,'" Snape sneers. "The mind is not a book, to be opened at will and examined at leisure ... The mind is a complex and many-layered thing, Potter ..." As usual, Snape is right, and in Phoenix Harry's mind becomes quite a bit more complex--and he acquires a few new layers...
There is nothing a reviewer could write that would stop a Harry Potter fan from reading Phoenix. Conversely, there is nothing a reviewer could say, short of an Imperius Curse, to persuade a nonfan to read it. (Book critics know much of the Dark Arts but not that much.) The Hogwarts Express is here, and you can either lie down on the tracks or get on board. If you choose the latter course, you're in for a thoroughly satisfying ride. Just when we might have expected author J.K. Rowling's considerable imaginative energies to flag--this is the fifth...
...trek to the Potter movies and read the books? Now that dreary sourcebooks are temporarily put away for the summer, what does 870 pages of escapist literature offer us? For one, the long-noted parallels between Harvard and Hogwarts are no longer just skin deep in Order of the Phoenix. Sure, Annenberg still bears a striking resemblance to the Hogwarts of the two Potter movies. Hogwarts still has residential Houses, though its sorting system (the cunning kids go to Slytherin, the smart ones to Ravenclaw, the brave to Gryffindor and everyone else to Hufflepuff) is the kind of thing that...
...High Inquisitor doesn’t just make enemies on the faculty. One of her first decrees in Order of the Phoenix immediately disbands all extracurricular activities. It would be convenient if the policy aimed to allow students more time to focus on academics, but it doesn’t—it’s merely that the High Inquisitor wants to be able to approve each student group before it re-forms...
...parallels between Hogwarts in Order of the Phoenix and Harvard in 2003 aren’t perfect, of course. What does remains true through each book, is that both Harvard and J.K. Rowling’s millions-selling series have inspired movies and t-shirts and all the other trappings of mass obsession...