Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Harry Potter, #1)

by J.K. Rowling

[inlibrisveritas]

This is a review from my third time reading this book.

It's rare that you find books that you can return to years after your first read and still find yourself in love with them. I remember having this read to me when I was 9 in 4th grade by my teacher and adoring it. I'd sit in the front of our group on the floor and be completely pulled in. Now as I sit here after reading it again at the age of 21 I still feel that same enthusiasm I did back then.
I still feel all the same emotions and had the same reactions, but I think it's been intensified. Knowing the whole story I can look at that first book and see things I didn't the first time. I certainly appreciate my favorite characters more.

There isn't much else I can say about how much I love these books. They've been with me for so long that I can't imagine a world without them.

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By this point everyone knows I love Harry Potter, so this review is less about the actual story (which is awesome) and more about the experience of the new Illustrated edition.

I first encountered Harry Potter at the age of 8, in fourth grade. A full year after it had first released, so after my teacher finished reading the first one to us in class I pressured my dad into buying both the first one and second one for me. It’s been 17 years (with the US release date, not UK) since that wonderful year, and this story has aged beautifully. Instead of growing tired of the same story, I only love it more with each reading and I love finding new ways to enjoy it like buying foreign editions or reading them with friends. So of course I used my birthday money to buy this (in July) and then proceeded to freak out until it finally released in October. It was so worth the wait!

I barely got a chapter in before I realized that THIS is the way Harry Potter should be read. Not only did the larger book format make the story easier to gobble up, the pictures only fueled my need and desire to keep flipping the pages because I so desperately wanted to know what the next one would look like. The illustrations themselves are gorgeous and I think that Kay really knocked it out of the park with his interpretations and art style. I spent a ton of time simply staring at each one looking for all the small details that he skillfully added in and even letting others look at them to see if they spotted anything I didn’t. The one image I had issue with, and yes there was only one, was the image that of Snape. I just didn’t get the potions room…it looked less like a dark, dank, apothecary and more like a chamber of horrors. I think my favorite character portrayals are Hagrid, Hermione, Dumbledore, and McGonagall.

To top it off, they have plans to release the entire series like this and I really hope with everything I have that they do. It’s so amazing to have something new to look forward to again. This Harry Potter nerd is completely in love and utterly satisfied.
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May 24th, 2016