Dear Joanne: Come home, all is forgiven

Minor spoilers

Those who read this site on a regular basis know I was not keen on the fifth book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In fact, I thought it was dreadful, weighted down with unnecessary filler and written in a way that seemed to suggest author J.K. Rowling was simply stalling for time in order to complete her promised seven books. At the end of that review, I threw down the gauntlet by stating Rowling would have to prove to me and others that the next book would be worth purchasing and reading.

Well, I've just finished up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and I have one thing to say to Ms. Rowling: bravo.

I am so impressed with this latest installment, in fact, that it may well end up replacing Prisoner of Azkaban as my favorite Harry Potter book. I've still got to give it time to sink in, though.

Half-Blood Prince is all the things Order of the Phoenix wasn't: it is well-written, engaging, succinct (yes, even at 600-plus pages it doesn't bog down), mature and, in at least one instance, honestly touching. At last, rather than being given cryptic information that raises more questions than answers, we are beginning to get some solid information in this tale--about Lord Voldemort's origins, about what might be necessary to defeat a Dark wizard, about the wizarding war in progress, and about the true nature of certain characters. Parents should be aware that this series is no longer for wee kiddywinkies--Harry and his friends are sixteen and seventeen years old, and the considerably darker and sometimes upsetting subject matter of this book is probably more suited to teen and adult readers than to young children.

There's something else I've got to say, too, to the committed Christians who have until now stayed away from the Harry Potter series out of well-meaning but misplaced concern that they glorify witchcraft and sorcery: please take the plunge, read the books and see for yourself. This installment of the series, more than any other to date, definitively places Harry Potter in the same ideological camp as C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. The elements of Christian allegory are quite clear and difficult to miss in Half-Blood Prince. Unless I am very much mistaken, these elements will only become clearer and more intense with the final book of the series.

I fear I cannot say more without divulging information that would spoil the book for those who have not yet read it. But please take me at my word: this one is well worth reading, and that's coming from a reviewer who was fully expecting to be disappointed.

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