Harry Potter

Okay, so I can't talk about reading book series with my children without mentioning their all-time favorite, Harry Potter! I don't believe I need to review these as I was kind of late to the party so probably read them after all of you. I read the first one when it came out and I liked it but not enough to keep buying the books as they came out and decided to wait until I had children and read the books with them.

That day finally arrived! We borrowed most of them from my sister and read through them pretty quickly as they are all interesting and fun. The benefit to reading them so late was that all the movies were out, too, so we would watch the movie, read the book, watch the movie again and then watch the next movie before we read the next book. I liked doing that. One thing I found out is that when we would watch the movie first, I would feel somewhat lost and after reading the book, the movie made so much more sense. So if you haven't actually read the books, you need to!  I actually didn't even like the sixth movie the first time I watched it and Harry and Dumbledore going after the horcruxes was boring and confusing to me. I was worried that I was feeling done with Harry Potter. Then we read the book and I loved it! We watched the movie again and I understood better what was happening and loved the movie, too! Okay, I wouldn't have been done with Harry Potter because at this point I had to know how the whole thing ended and I had a sneaking suspicion about Snape and had to know the truth--was he good or bad?

I enjoyed these books and it was a great series that kept my son's attention. He would beg for more, and since some of those chapters are 30 pages, that was amazing for him. This is definitely a favorite series for my children and one which they will read multiple times in their lives, and I'm sure they'll share it with their children.

If I had to choose, I would have to say my favorite is the first one. That's when we're introduced to Harry and Hogwarts and all the fun and interesting characters that make up the series and it seems so full of possibility and wonder at all that we're going to learn about them. So, which book is your favorite and why?

My rating for the series: 5 stars