Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Book 3

Editorial Review
For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig.

Customer Reviews

The Good Old Days

2008-05-10
This is truly a great book. It is the real starting point for Harry's adventures. The Chamber of Secrets and The Sorcerer's Stone weren't able to give me anywhere near the amount of excitement I received while reading this book. I give this book 5 stars for many different reasons

Harry Potter's skills as a sorcerer aren't very impressive until this book when he learns to use the Patonus...something...I read this a while back lol. Also, the Dementors were the first creatures throughout the whole series to really strike fear into my mind. Sure there were traps that were devastating in the first book, and sure there was the basilisk who could kill people with its glare. But the Dementors were able to make a person suffer horribly through only emotions. I mean, who wouldn't be scared of having all the happiness and good emotions sucked out of you and the environment around you. The chilled air and flickering lights (maybe they actually turned off) scared the bejesus out of me.

Here's a measurement for how good this book is and how it's a turning point for this whole series. I cannot begin to describe how fast I read this book compared to the first two. The Sorcer's Stone took me a whole year because it bored the crap out of me. The Chamber of Secrets...I got up to the 2nd paragraph and actually could not go on reading it. The Prisoner of Azkaban, by far my favorite of the whole series, took me the better part of a week or two to read. The same with The Deathly Hallows and The Half-Blood Prince. Overall, the maturity of this book compared to the first two is pumped up and it is truly a masterpiece for people of all ages.

PCE Student Review

2008-04-28
My Favorite book is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling. This book is funny. My favorite characters are Harry Potter and Ron Weasly. Harry's funny and adventurous. He's fun and likes to try new things and has lots of courage. Ron is funny also, and likes to do almost what Harry does. Ron and Harry make the Harry Potter series joyful.

The author's writing style is joyful and the genre is adventure. J.K. Rowling is best at setting up the setting I think Hogwarts is a wonderful setting.

The best part of this book is that ever character is different in each chapter. They do lots of mini adventures in the big adventure; to find the prisoner Sirius Black. Best yet, Harry tries to go to Hogsmeade but gets caught by Professor Snape. I recommend this book for people in 3rd and above.

accio what?

2008-04-18
Mr. Dale has a strange way of pronouncing accio folks, prepare yourself.

We all really enjoy listening to the Potter series on audio CD. They are well done.

Fantastic!

2008-04-10
We've now bought all the Harry Potter audio books. My husband's not a great reader at home (newspaper and sports mags) but he drives a lot for his job. He loves listening to all these stories. We also play them in the car for the kids when we are travelling. We are big Harry Potter fans and these books have been a wonderful purchase. Now he can join in all our conversations too! Jim Dale is amazing, you completely forget it's only one person reading the book.

Good Book

2008-04-07
This is a very good book, i thought the harry potter books would suck but they dont. they are getting better and better. This was a good book to read

Every character comes alive!!!

2008-03-12
For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig.

As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black--an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban--is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson

This is my favorite book! 2008-02-13
I loved this book on cd. For any Harry Potter fan its a must have and for any one thats new to Harry Potter beware by listening to this cd you'll get hooked to Harry Potter like I did.

third book still a great and popular work 2008-02-13
With the fourth book about to come out and the first three staying in the top ten on all best seller lists, I thought it was high time that I read the series to find out what makes it so popular. Besides, my wife and my ten year old son love the stories.
I discovered that J. K. Rowling has a wonderful writing style. Although the stories build upon themselves they can be read independently as she reviews aspects from the past. She creates very interesting characters. We admire Harry Potter and his friends Hermoine and Ron. We despise Malfoy and Harry's muggle relatives. The characters that start out as villians may turn out to be heroes. All the plots are intriguing and magic is brought in to help the plot.

This is the longest and best of the three. In fact I think each book is better than its predecessor. They are all great!

In this one it is Hermoine's secret that leads to the surprise ending and helps Hermoine and Harry save Sirius Black and Buckbeak but also Pettigrew. Pettigrew's escape seems to be a lead in for book 4 where I suspect he will return to Lord Voldemort.

There are seven books in the series and most nhave now come out as movies as well. Starting with the Goblet of Fire the books became a little too long and "dark" for the youth groups that it was originally intended for. Rowling has a way of attracting both the children and the adults to these books. Still I became disappointed with some of the latter ones.

Excellent Book! 2008-02-11
As it used to be from Rowling, this is another Masterpiece. I love hp books, its story is intriguing and very addictive, a little bit dark but excellent anyway. This story in particular is one of the best becuse it ends up full fo hope for harry and his gang, ending up with a kinda of happy end, something unsual of Rowling. Buy, read it and I assure that you will enjoy it!

HP doesn't disappoint 2008-02-08
For me, this is where the series really starts to go from great to amazing. I highly recommend this book. It's so fantastic!