by Agatha Christie

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Detective, Thriller, Murder Mystery, British Literature

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks (HarperCollins)
Length: 288 pages
Published: December 2001 (originally published July 6, 1936)
Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Official Book Summary:

“Suspicious events at a Middle Eastern archaeological excavation site intrigue the great Hercule Poirot as he investigates Murder in Mesopotamia, a classic murder mystery from Agatha Christie.Amy Leatheram has never felt the lure of the mysterious East, but when she travels to an ancient site deep in the Iraqi desert to nurse the wife of a celebrated archaeologist, events prove stranger than she could ever have imagined. Her patient’s bizarre visions and nervous terror seem unfounded, but as the oppressive tension in the air thickens, events come to a terrible climax–in murder.With one spot of blood as his only clue, Hercule Poirot must embark on a journey not just across the desert, but into the darkest crevices of the human soul to unravel a mystery which taxes even his remarkable powers”

Quote:

“I’m not often bored,’ I assured her. “Life’s not long enough for that.”

Excerpt:

“I suppose I ought to say a word or two about myself. I’m thirty-two and my name is Amy Leatheran. I took my training at St. Christopher’s and after that did two years maternity. I did a certain amount of private work and I was for four years at Miss Bendix’s Nursing Home in Devonshire Place. I came out to Iraq with a Mrs. Kelsey. I’d attended her when her baby was born. She was coming out to Baghdad with her husband and had already got a children’s nurse booked who had been for some years with friends of hers out there. Their children were coming home and going to school, and the nurse had agreed to go to Mrs. Kelsey when they left. Mrs. Kelsey was delicate and nervous about the journey out with so young a child, so Major Kelsey arranged that I should come out with her and look after her and the baby. They would pay my passage home unless we found someone needing a nurse for the return journey.

Well, there is no need to describe the Kelseys—the baby was a little love and Mrs. Kelsey quite nice, though rather the fretting kind. I enjoyed the voyage very much. I’d never been a long trip on the sea before.”

My Book Review:

Nurse Amy Leatheran is hired by an archeologist to attend to his wife, Louise Leidner, who is becoming increasingly paranoid, seeing faces at windows, and believes she’s going to be murdered. When she’s found dead and only the members of the archeological dig are suspects, Hercule Poirot pieces together the clues to solve this variation on the locked room mystery tradition.

My jaw literally dropped when the truths behind the mystery were revealed.

Over the last several years, I’ve been working my way through the Hercule Poirot series. It’s commonly known which are the most famous installments in the series–The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile, etc.–but I absolutely love it when I come across a new favorite that I hadn’t anticipated.

Fans of Agatha Christie likely know that her marriage to her second husband welcomed a new period of adventures abroad into her life, including a lot of time spent on location at archaeological digs in the Middle East. Christie’s first-hand experience with areas like Baghdad allows her to add so much to the setting of this novel, creating a strong sense of mood and place just as strong as her celebrated tales set in the English countryside.

If you’re a fan of Christie or murder mysteries in general, I definitely recommend reading Murder in Mesopotamia. The Hercule Poirot series can be enjoyed by anyone and you do not have to read them in order to appreciate their plots.

It’s October, Halloween is upon us, the weather is turning cold, and it’s the perfect time of year to pick up a Gothic or mystery novel. I love it when it’s dark and windy outside, you can hear the cold rain hitting against the window panes, and you’re wrapped up in your favorite blanket lost in a good story. 

Last year at this time I came up with a list of “31 Halloween Movies (For Those Who Don’t Like Horror).” This time, however, I thought I’d cut right to the chase and list some books full of ghosts, paranoid narrators, monsters, and more. A warning: as many of these novels are Gothic, mystery, horror, or crime-related, some of the content is disturbing. That may mean that many of these books are not suited to all audiences. Do some preliminary research, read lengthier reviews, or ask around if you’re worried about content. These stories really have it all and not all of it is “good.” I’ve included a few innocuous children’s books, but I’ve also included several popular Halloween reads that contain disturbing passages. You’ve been warned.

Keeping the list to 31 was difficult–there were so many titles to consider–but I think the final list is a decent representation of many Halloween favorites. Here they are in no particular order:

by Henry James

A governess cares for two orphans in the country and soon fears someone or something is out to attack her and the children. Highlight: Sometimes not seeing something can be scarier than seeing it.

by Bram Stoker

The original account of blood-sucking monsters come to prey on men, women, and children. Highlight: Blood transfusions have never been so creepy.

by Shirley Jackson

A group of strangers gathers at an old estate to test if it’s haunted. Highlight: Holding hands with a ghost will freak you out.

by Shirley Jackson

A young girl and her sister are the only remaining survivors of arsenic poisoning. Worse than that? One of the sisters is guilty. Shunned by the town and trying to survive locked within the walls of this castle, they’ll try to survive until murder strikes again. Highlight: Don’t eat the sugar.

by Agatha Christie

The original tale of strangers lured to a cut-off location and how each dies one by one as predicted by a children’s nursery rhyme until then there were none. Who’s the murderer and why have these victims been called here? Highlight: Having no clue what’s happening or who’s doing it.

by Agatha Christie (full review here)

As children, neighbors, family, and friends gather to decorate and prepare for an upcoming Halloween party, thirteen-year-old Joyce Reynolds brags that she once witnessed a murder. Though many dismiss her outlandish claim as a cry for attention, at the end of the party her body is found murdered. Highlight: Scary children.

by Mary Shelley

Viktor Frankenstein mourns the loss of his dear mother and after witnessing lightning striking a tree, wonders if a dead corpse can be reanimated. His creation–treated as a monster–is abandoned at birth and must teach itself to communicate while hunting the man who refused to be his father. Highlight: Feeling bad for a monster who speaks French and reads classic literature. 

by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca is the second Mrs. de Winter and is haunted by the memory of her husband’s first wife as she tries to live in her shadows at the Manderley estate. How did the first Mrs. de Winter die? Rebecca has to find out. Highlight: The quiet, eerie calm that threatens to boil over page after page is sheer perfection. 

by Paula Hawkins

A Londoner spies on a young married couple each day she passes them on the train until one day the wife goes missing and our train-rider’s amnesia makes her worry she’s somehow involved. Highlight: Wondering if the drunk, unreliable narrator is a victim or a villain. 

by Matthew Lewis

A monk is tempted by one of the devil’s demons. The Gothic background of haunted castles, ghosts, closed passageways, and mystery predates the nineteenth century yet demonstrates the horrors of a twenty-first century mind. Highlight: The entire second chapter is a long and delicious tale of fright and when you finally meet the devil’s disciple, she looks like she raided David Bowie’s wardrobe.

by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

The Victorian era’s greatest sensation novel, a tale of deception, bigamy, and murder. Highlight: Upper-class ladies are not always what they claim to be and neither are their husbands. 

by P. D. James

Author P. D. James picks up Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice just a few years after its famous conclusion and adds a new twist: a death has occurred on the Pemberley estate and all of its men are suspects. Highlight: Revisiting a beloved Romantic-era tale with a mystery added in.

by Dashiell Hammett

Hammett’s novel is completely misogynistic, but his tale of a series of murders and thefts related to a priceless black statue is a defining moment in the creation of the hard-boiled detective crime genre. Highlight: Seeing the development of a genre. 

by Stephen King

When a reclusive author meets his number-one fan, his life will never be the same. Neither will his nightmares. Highlight: Unbelievably terrifying.

  by Stephen King

A bullied and abused teenage girl develops paranormal powers as she wreaks havoc and attempts mass vengeance on her small town. Highlight: Reasons never to bully someone nor attend a prom. 

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Though Dr. Jekyll is one of the most respected men in London, friends fear his association with a hideous man known as Mr. Hyde foretells great danger. Highlight: Your doppelganger will get you if you don’t watch out.

by Neil Gaiman

Young Coraline steps through a forbidden door in her house only to discover another family on the other side, eerily similar to her own. Highlight: A Stepford Wives eerily calm quality.

by Neil Gaiman

Bod not only lives in a graveyard, he’s the only human resident. Highlight: Cool setting.

by Oscar Wilde

When Dorian Gray sits for a portrait, he fears he will never be able to maintain the health and beauty rendered in the painting. When he makes a supernatural vow to never lose his youth, he faces the consequences of eternal agelessness and a darkening portrait that threatens to betray the secrets of his sold soul. Highlight: When art attacks.

by Edgar Allan Poe

There are so many great ones to enjoy, but be sure to check out “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “The Cask of Amontiallado,” and “The Purloined Letter.” Highlight: You’ll never look at ravens the same way.

by Wilkie Collins

A blend of Victorian detective, mystery, and sensation novels, the story follows a sleuth trying to piece together the truth about a lost woman dressed all in white who has seemingly escaped from a mental asylum. Highlight: Great characters, including Count Fosco. You’ll want to wax your mustache ends while reading his lines.

by Cormac McCarthy

It’s the post-apocalypse and a father and son are doing their best to hide from blood-thirsty survivors. Highlight: A haunting mood that makes you check behind you to see if you’re being followed.

by Alvin Schwartz

The scary stories kids used to read to each other during sleepovers in the 80’s and 90’s. Highlight: The creepiest drawings are found in the editions illustrated by Stephen Gammell.

by Ransom Riggs

While I admit I lost interest in book two of this series, the first installment is a wonderfully odd account of supernatural misfits drawn together to fight evil. Highlight: Riggs’ inclusion of odd 19th- and 20th-century black and white photographs.

by Arthur Conan Doyle

The story of a home on the English moors, the legend of a hell-hound, and death on a moonlit night. Highlight: The setting.

  by Arthur Conan Doyle

You can start with A Study in Scarlet, the first murder-solving case featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson at 221B Baker Street, or just bounce around titles at random. Be sure to check out The Speckled Band and The Red-Headed League. Highlight: Picturing Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.

by H. G. Wells

The turn-of-the-century tale of aliens invading our planet. Highlight: Victorian paranoia imagining when Mars attacks.

28. The Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat

by Jan and Stan Berenstain

Perfect for young readers or old fans who’ll enjoy a nice trip down memory lane remembering when trick-or-treating was simpler and safer than it is now. Highlight: Candy and living in a hollowed out tree.

by Charles M. Schwartz

Somehow I seem to miss this every year when it’s shown on TV so it’s to the bookshelf I go! Highlight: Linus.

by Emily Bronte

The tale of Catherine and Heathcliff, their doomed and unnatural love, and the downward spiral of the adjoining generational tenets of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Highlight: Heathcliff digging up Catherine’s body to find her body has been unaltered by death.

  by Jane Austen

Catherine Morland thinks she’s living in one of the Gothic novels she adores. Is she paranoid or are her suspicions on the money? Highlight: Romantic-era satire.

What do you like to read this time of year?

by Ted Kooser illustrated by Jon Klassen

“The winds pushed at the house, but the young trees kept it from falling apart, and as they grew bigger and stronger, they held it together as if it was a bird’s nest in the fingers of their branches.”

When children grow old and families change, some things get left behind. When a family home is abandoned, however, wild maple, elm, ash, hackberry, and cottonwood trees band together to lift and support the memories and seeds in this home that will never be forgotten. Two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser’s picture book is a deeply beautiful and profound tribute to home, family, loss, nature, and the power of the future. The lovely language and vivid imagery in his picture book—along with Jon Klassen’s beautiful illustrations—capture a child’s imagination while striking at the heartstrings of older audiences.

Kooser’s story leaves readers feeling inspired and strengthened by the powerful roots of these unfailingly faithful trees.

by Adam Begley

Genre: Biography, Art

Publisher: Tim Duggan Books

Length: 256 pages
Published: July 11, 2017
Purchase Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble

Thank you to Goodreads and Tim Duggan Books for sending me an advanced copy of The Great Nadar: The Man Behind the Camera.

Official Book Summary:

“A dazzling, stylish biography of a fabled Parisian photographer, adventurer, and pioneer. A recent French biography begins, Who doesn’t know Nadar? In France, that’s a rhetorical question. Of all of the legendary figures who thrived in mid-19th-century Paris a cohort that includes Victor Hugo, Baudelaire, Gustave Courbet, and Alexandre Dumas Nadar was perhaps the most innovative, the most restless, the most modern. The first great portrait photographer, a pioneering balloonist, the first person to take an aerial photograph, and the prime mover behind the first airmail service, Nadar was one of the original celebrity artist-entrepreneurs. A kind of 19th-century Andy Warhol, he knew everyone worth knowing and photographed them all, conferring on posterity psychologically compelling portraits of Manet, Sarah Bernhardt, Delacroix, Daumier and countless others a priceless panorama of Parisian celebrity. Born Gaspard-Felix Tournachon, he adopted the pseudonym Nadar as a young bohemian, when he was a budding writer and cartoonist. Later he affixed the name Nadar to the facade of his opulent photographic studio in giant script, the illuminated letters ten feet tall, the whole sign fifty feet long, a garish red beacon on the boulevard. Nadar became known to all of Europe and even across the Atlantic when he launched “The Giant,” a gas balloon the size of a twelve-story building, the largest of its time. With his daring exploits aboard his humongous balloon (including a catastrophic crash that made headlines around the world), he gave his friend Jules Verne the model for one of his most dynamic heroes.

The Great Nadar is a brilliant, lavishly illustrated biography of a larger-than-life figure, a visionary whose outsized talent and canny self-promotion put him way ahead of his time.“

Excerpt:

“The year is 1865, or possibly 1864. The place is a four-story building on the south side of the boulevard des Capucines, between Le Madeleine and the Opera, strolling distance from the epicenter of fashionable Paris. If you look up, you’ll see near the top of the facade of number 35 a name in giant script: Nadar, signed with a flourish in red glass tubing, the letters ten feet high, the whole trademark fifty feet long. at night the sign is gaslight, a garish crimson beacon advertising the studio of the most famous photographer in France. Nadar is a celebrity, renowned not only for his portraits of eminent contemporaries but also for his caricatures, his writings, his radical politics, and his daredevil exploits as a balloonist. Today he will be calling upon several of his talents at once: his is at work on a portrait of himself as an aeronaut, a task that combines self-exposure with self-promotion and self-caricature. His motives, like almost all motives, are mixed. The photography will advertise his art, promote the cause of human flight–the cause closest to his heart (at the moment)–and serve a specific commercial purpose: generate publicity for a memoir of his most notorious ballooning adventure. But he’s chronically incapable of suppressing the artistic ambition that has shaped his photographic career–that is, the urge to capture in every portrait an intimate and compelling psychological likeness. This photo will be a triumph.”

Book received from the publisher.

by Sean Bryan illustrated by Tom Murphy Children’s picture book fiction, ages 3-5.

“THE WORLD’S ONLY JUGGLING PUG!

It’s okay if sometimes he poops on the rug.” A town makes money off of a talking dog who can juggle.

In The Juggling Pug, Sean Bryan gives readers a humorous picture book about a pug who has an unexpected talent. Fame, however, soon goes to his head.

The once beloved pup turns into an indulged ne’er-do-well as many around him try to make some money off of his spotlight.

In the tradition of The Emperor’s New Clothes, it’s only the powerful intervention of a young child who must put her foot down and call and end to all of the madness.

This Sunday is Father’s Day. I’ve seen a number of lists over the years about the best (and worst) fathers in literature, but I prefer to focus on the best. I’m convinced I have the greatest father of all time. I hope everyone feels that way about their dad, but if not, I hope they have other men in their life they admire. I put together a list of some of my favorite fathers in literature, but I would love to hear what you think–who are your favorite fathers in literature? Who did I forget? Here is my list in no particular order:

Atticus Finch

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Bob Cratchit

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Matthew Cuthbert

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

Arthur Weasley

The Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling

Thomas Schell

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

William Danny

Danny the Champion of the World by Roald Dahl

Charles Ingalls

The Little House on the Prairie Series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

Otto Frank

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

Robert Quimby

The Ramona Series by Beverly Cleary

Narrator

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Hans Hubermann

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

The Man in the Yellow Hat

The Curious George Series by H. A. Rey

Papa Bear

The Berenstain Bears by Jan and Stan Berenstain

Mr. Penderwick

The Penderwick Series by Jeanne Birdsall

John Ames

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

Calvin’s Father

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Uncle Tom

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Big Friendly Giant

The BFG by Roald Dahl

Christopher Robin

Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne

Dickon

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Amazon is hosting a sale on print children’s books until July 6th. All of the titles listed below are being sold at up to 50% off–most for only a few dollars each.

Ages 3-5 My First Airplane Ride by Patricia Hubbell My Big Rig by Jonathan London My Kitten by Margaret O’Hale Don’t Wake Up the Bear! by Marjorie Dennis Murray Cool Dog, School Dog by Deborah Heiligman 10 Little Hot Dogs by John Himmelman Airplanes: Soaring! Diving! Turning! by Patricia Hubbell Kitty Cat, Kitty Cat, Are You Waking Up? by Bill Martin Jr. & Michael Sampson

Ages 6-8 Basil’s Birds by Lynn Rowe Reed The Three Cabritos by Eric A. Kimmel Horsehoe Crabs and Shorebirds: The Story of a Food Web by Victoria Crenson A Mountain of Blintzes by Barbara Diamond Goldin The Fisherman and the Turtle by Eric A. Kimmel The Fiesta Dress: A Quinceanera Tale by Caren McNelly McCormack The Sound That Jazz Makes by Carole Boston Weatherford Karate Hour by Carol Nevius A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman Little Swan by Jonathon London

Don’t Be Silly, Mrs. Millie! by Judy Cox Fly, Monarch! Fly! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace Silly Tilly by Eileen Spinelli Princess Peepers by Pam Calvert

City Dog, Country Dog by Susan Stevens Crummel & Dorothy Donohue Emma Dilemma and the New Nanny (from the Emma Dilemma series) by Patricia Hermes The Dragon Stone (from the Rocky Cave Kids series) by Dian Curtis Regan Moose’s Big Idea and Moose Crossing (from the Moose and Hildy series) by Stephanie Greene Cuckoo Feathers and Patches and Scratches (from the Simply Sarah series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor On the Road, Home on the Range, and Bad to the Bone (from the Down Girl and Sit series) by Lucy Nolan

Ages 9-12 Losing It by Erin Fry Cloaked in Red by Vivian Vande Velde Nuts by Kacy Cook The Mines of the Minotaur and The Secret of the Sirens (from the Companions Quartet series) by Julia Golding The 13th Warning and My Alien Parents by R. L. Stine The Remarkable & Very True Story of Lucy & Snowcap by H. M. Bouwman

by J.K. Rowling

For years, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was my favorite book in the Harry Potter series. This last year, however, I decided that I cannot decide–I love parts of each of them for different reasons. If I could take my favorite sections from each and mash them together, I’d have a thoroughly enjoyable though completely messed-up plotline: (#1) Harry learning he’s a wizard and meeting Hagrid and the wizard world, (#2) Harry spending time at the Burrow with the Weasley family, (#3) Harry’s conversation with Sirius Black about being his godson and his new hopes of leaving the Dursleys to live with Sirius instead, (#4) Harry and Cedric traveling by portkey to the graveyard, Harry’s battle with Lord Voldemort, his scenes in the hospital wing and his conversation with Dumbledore thereafter, (#5) the forming of Dumbledore’s Army and their meetings, (#6) Harry’s lessons with Dumbledore, journey to the cave, and the battle on the Hogwarts tower, and (#7) Harry’s times with Hermoine and Ron setting up camp around England and the entirety of the final battle. Ahhh, what a wonderful read that would be.

That being said, you now know my favorite part of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the book up for review today. The entire conversation in the Shrieking Shack is so fantastic. I love how Lupin takes the time to listen to and talk to Harry as if they were just having an ordinary lesson in class, in part because as readers we’re soaking up each word. I loved learning more about Harry’s father, James, and his days at Hogwarts as one-fourth of Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs. I loved that everyone was wrong about Sirius and that when given a chance, he offers his home to Harry without hesitation. The glimpse Harry had here at forming a new family was so exciting, and then devastating when it was taken away.

Here are just three of my favorite quotes from book three:

(1) The passphrase to using the Marauder’s Map, invented by Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs, but nicked by Fred and George Weasley: “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.” And how!

(2) Remus Lupin chiding Harry for his thoughtless actions: “Your parents gave their lives to keep you alive, Harry. A poor way to repay them–gambling their sacrifice for a bag of magic tricks.” To most fans, this line may be a bit of a downer and certainly not one they’d love. They’d prefer it if Lupin gave a sheepish grin and turned a blind eye to Harry’s tomfoolery, the same way he did as a teenager with his best friends James and Sirius. But Lupin isn’t a teenager anymore, he’s grown up, lost many of those closest to him, endured painful decades  as an outsider unable to secure work and settle down, and when he thinks of losing James and Lily he speaks the words Harry needs to hear, the words of a parent. I love Lupin so much, but more on that in a bit.

(3) Not necessarily a quote, per se, but the section of dialogue I mentioned above where Harry speaks with Sirius about leaving the Dursleys and coming to live with him instead.

I know that Sirius is beloved, but I’ve always favored Lupin. Always. (See what I did there?) His illness and what he symbolizes as a rejected, misunderstood man is so heartbreaking. This was always readily evident within the character development and plot of the series–his werewolf status, the judgment he endures, the physical pain of the transformation and ill health, his gray hairs far beyond his years and shabby clothes–Lupin! Hang in there! We are rooting for you! He lived in James and Sirius’ shadows and was relegated to the fringes of society but he never becomes bitter. While there’s a moment in book seven where Harry doubts Lupin’s abililty to love and sacrifice, he’s quickly proven wrong. When I first read J.K. Rowling’s additional details about Lupin on the Pottermore website, I just nodded my head in agreement and adored that he too is is one of her favorite characters in the entire series.

What’s your favorite or least favorite section of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban? Are you a Sirius fan or Lupin fan? Ugh, isn’t Wormtail just the worse? Ick.

by Andrea Beaty illustrated by David Roberts

“Life might have its failures, but this was not it. The only true failure can come if you quit.”

Beaty’s picture book for young readers tells the story of young Rosie Revere, a descendent of Rosie the Riveter, who dreams of being a great engineer. Young Rosie loves taking things apart to see how they work, using her imagination, and creating new gadgets and gizmos. After Rosie faces early discouragement, she learns that there is no shame in dreaming big when her great-great-aunt, Rosie the Revere, shows up to encourage her ambition, her creativity, and her visions for the future. Young Rosie learns the only thing she ever need fear is giving up on her dreams. Roberts’ watercolor, pen, and ink illustrations add vibrancy to the pages and the story sends a great, empowering message to young readers, both female and male.

by J.K. Rowling

Is there anything not to love about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? Harry’s one-on-one lessons with Dumbledore and the friendship between them as they press forward in the fight against Voldemort is simply fantastic. It is evident from the beginning of the novel when Dumbledore arrives at the Dursley’s and takes Harry with him to visit Horace Slughorn, that readers will get to see more of this teacher-student camaraderie than ever before. Even though Slughorn’s so-called Slug Club is annoying and ridiculous–as is Harry’s dependence on the Half-Blood Prince’s textbook to cheat his way through Potions–Slughorn’s presence brings with it the presence of the Felix Felicitus potion and the horcrux memory so crucial to knowing how to fight Voldemort. Though some readers find Slughorn as annoying as they found Gilderoy Lockhart, I find him far more interesting and necessary of a character.

Even though I’ve read this book a few times, I find myself slowing down and having to set it aside once Harry rushes to grab his invisibility cloak, tells Hermoine and Ron he’s about to set out with Dumbledore, and advises them to distribute and use the remaining Felix Felicitus potion and to be on alert for an attack. [Spoiler alerts from here on out.] I love the conclusion of the series so much and yet I love/hate reading it. I find myself putting the book down, then picking it up and reading a few pages, then putting it down again, and the cycle repeats. So much occurs that it’s difficult to take it all in stride: the journey to the cave, the inferi, Dumbledore drinking the water to get the locket, the locket being a fake, the Death Eater’s mark above Hogwarts, the scene with Draco and Snape on top of the tower, Dumbledore’s death and Snape’s escape, the battle inside the school, Hagrid’s house being set afire and when learns of Dumbledore’s death, Fawkes’ song mourning Dumbledore’s death, the funeral, Harry saying goodbye to Ginny, and then Hermoine and Ron volunteering to leave Hogwarts and join Harry in his ultimate battle to kill Voldemort. I can’t handle it. It’s so great and so sad and so exciting and so awful and so wonderful.

Here are five wonderful quotes from the book before I conclude with some thoughts about Dumbledore:

(1) Albus Dumbledore’s words to Harry within Tom Riddle’s cave: “There is nothing to be feared from a body, Harry, any more than there is anything to be feared from the darkness…It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.” Considering what happens thereafter, it’s perfect that some of the last words Dumbledore uttered to Harry in a relative moment of peace before the storm were about setting aside fear of death and choosing to embrace bravery.

(2) Harry speaking about Album Dumbledore’s departure from Hogwarts: “He will only be gone from the school when none here are loyal to him.” I like this line not just because of Harry’s loyalty to Dumbledore, but because it creates a full-circle moment between this experience and the foreshadowing within Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets when Harry likewise declared his loyalty to Dumbledore and was rewarded with the appearance of Fawkes, the sorting hat, and the sword of Gryffindor. His reward here is less tangible, but no less significant.

(3) Severus Snape to Harry: “DON’T CALL ME A COWARD!” A round of applause to J.K. Rowling for the masterful characterization of Severus Snape. While readers don’t learn his full story until the final pages of book seven, I love how complicated his character is. He isn’t good, he isn’t bad, he’s completely messed up in this liminal space between the two and I adore Rowling for making him this way. 

(4) Luna Lovegood to Harry: “I liked the DA too. It was like having friends.” Does anyone else’s heart completely break for Luna? Like Snape, she’s so important to the storyline even if she has a smaller role to play. I adore her. So many things about her are endearing: the loss of her mother, the bullying she endures, her sweetness, her loyalty to her father, her ready willingness to join the DA and fight alongside Harry regardless of the cost, and the fact that she and Neville continued to carry the DA coins in their pocket long after the meetings ended. Three cheers for Luna! I think she shows children that it’s okay to be different just as it’s essential to be kind.

(5) Harry’s thoughts at the conclusion of the novel: “But he understood at last what Dumbledore had been trying to tell him. It was, he thought, the difference between being dragged into the arena to face a battle to the death and walking into the arena with your head held high. Some people, perhaps, would say that there was little to choose between the two ways, but Dumbledore knew—and so do I, thought Harry, with a rush of fierce pride, and so did my parents—that there was all the difference in the world.” If you’re not crying at the conclusion of this book, what is up with you?

If you’re reading this review, then you’re likely team Harry and you find the banning of the book ridiculous. While the books are certainly not appropriate for all ages, the messages within them are beautiful. Those who call the books anti-Christian must be unfamiliar with basic literary concepts like metaphor, analogy, and allegory, among others. Perhaps this is nowhere as clearly evident as it is within the scene in the cave as Dumbledore submits to drinking the water cup by cup. It’s such a powerful scene and testament to sacrifice and courage. More importantly, this moment resounds with readers regardless of religious belief and background because it speaks to the depths of love, a power to which we can each relate.

What’s your favorite element of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? I’ll be posting my final review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Monday followed by my reaction to Harry Potter and the Cursed Child late next week. I can’t wait to hear what each of you think as you read it yourself!