In my 'Top Ten Books of all time' hub I list the books that I feel are the best books I have ever read. This hub gives more details on the book Ender's Game which I proudly placed in my Top Ten List.

I will be creating a hub for each of the featured books in the list.

Harry Potter’s world is the same world that we live in; the same city’s are filled with sprawling buildings and millions of people. However, within these cities and towns and villages hidden by magic are pockets of a world that is alien to hours.

A whole ministry is devoted to keeping these places hidden from normal human’s eyes (or Muggles eyes) and while the occasional flying car may be seen, or the odd dragon may cause disruptions, usually the ministry is there to cover up the whole incident.

This hidden world is subtly different to ours; creatures straight out of mythology exist side by side more familiar animals; Magical plants grow in the same turf as non magical plants’ and magic is very prevalent.

Even the schools are similar; they are organized in the same way, they play sports, they eat together – the difference being that instead of Math and English, they are taught herbology and potions; instead of baseball and soccer they play Quiddich; instead of a red-brick building, they are taught in a castle.

Harry not only meets different races of human, but he also meets different species such as dwarves, goblins, trolls, elves; additionally the normal dangerous creatures to him are ghouls, dragons and giant spiders, not wolves, foxes and alligators.

Essentially, Harry’s world is ‘fantastic’ compared to ours.

Harry Potter’s life is not good. His parents were killed when he was a baby and he was adopted by his Uncle and Aunt Dursley. The Dursley don’t like Harry and force him to live in the cupboard under the stairs and treat him more like a slave than a nephew.

However when Rubeus Hagrid arrives on Harry’s birthday and announces that Harry has been accepted into Hogwarts (the wizarding school) Harry life takes a turn for the better. Firstly, for the first time in his life he has some friends; Ron and Hermione soon become very close to Harry and the camaraderie they all have is unique for him. Together the three of them get into all sorts of trouble as they try and solve the mystery of the sorcerer’s stone.

Harry is convinced that Severus Snape, a professor who has an instant disliking to Harry, is trying to steal a magical stone that will give the owner immortal life. Harry is sure that Snape is trying to get the stone to give it to Lord Voldermort, Harry’s nemesis and also the murderer of Harry’s parents.

…

The book is a great introduction into the world of Harry Potter, introducing the reader to all the major characters that are prevalent through all seven books in the series. Rowling does a great job of instilling the pages of the book with thrills, adventure, intrigue and danger while infusion it all with humor and magic.

Harry Potter cannot be classed as a true classic as the writing is flawed in many ways, however it proudly sits in my top ten list for many reasons:

• The world Rowling has created is very identifiable to us all; even though she adds magic to it, it still has a quality about it that makes it seem real.
• The characters in the book are flawed and thus feel real. They interact with each other in ways in which you’d expect of real people – there’s anger, jealousy, love etc infused into every character in some small way.
• Rowling has taking a genre (fantasy) and made it accessible to the mass. While books like Lord of the Rings are superb, most people will never read it. Harry Potter has bridged the gap to take this from being a purely fantasy book and made it a children’s book that just happens to be a fantasy book.
• The book brings the family closer together – for me this is a superb element – we read the whole series as a family, and even though my kids are grown up we still talk about and debate the Harry Potter series – in fact when the theme park opens we’ll all be going. This book gave my children an interest in reading.
  
  

Harry Potter has become one of the best selling books of all time; while this doesn't always point to quality writing, in this case I feel that the series deserves the accolades. It truly is a fabulous family series that not only help families to bond, but also creates some young readers.

For once there’s a movie about a book that stays pretty close to the actual book; this is partly due to J K Rowling’s involvement in the movie, but also a testament to the fact that the quality of the characters and plot is such that nothing really needs to be left out.

The scene is set with the mystical music as the movie starts. As you view the initial scenes in the Dursley’s house, and then move to Hogwarts castle you can almost feel the atmosphere of the book transferring to the big screen. Much of what you see has captured the essence of the book.

The movie may be a little slow at first as it tries to build the characters and show the idiosyncrasies that make them so lovable, but it does well to capture most of the key plot points and especially brings forward the subtle humor of the book.

The only disappointment was the CGI – for a movie of this quality I would have expected the CGI to be far better.

Overall I loved the anticipation and excitement that the movie has captured – even though I knew the outcome, the movie really set the climatic ending up well and I really enjoyed the whole experience.

The video game does well to tie into the movie; the characters are modeled on the actors in the movie, and much of the game focuses on scenes that could be taken directly off the big screen.

The game is basically a combination of a platform game and an adventure game where you run around a 3-d environment looking for items etc to solve puzzled. The system used to cast spells etc is fun at times, although it does get a little boring after a while.

I found that at times the game was a little too difficult for younger children – some of the sections required dexterity and timing that were difficult for an advanced gamer, let alone a young Harry Potter fan playing a video game for the first time.

Overall, with decent graphics, a nice sound-track, great voices and decent game play this game is pretty good – it lets you control various characters and actually has quite a lot of game play. With hidden items to be found, and sub games to be played it really is a lot of fun to play.