| $@%&! level: Low “Bedroom” level: None Violence level: Medium-Low (most of it done by dementors, animals, or humans in animal form) Back Cover: “For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort. Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep, 'He's at Hogwarts...he's at Hogwarts.' Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst.” |
As I've said before, I'm consistently impressed with the way these stories fit together, and with the time-travel aspect, this one is even more impressive in that area. Not only does everything tie in together, with small things leading to large things, and actions having unintended consequences, but it has to do all that twice! The mystery of Sirius Black—why he's come to Hogwarts, why Harry should be especially afraid of him (not that he is, of course), and all the rest of his back-story and motivation—gets taken care of in typical fashion. In other words, Harry spends just as much time overhearing things and wandering around in his invisibility cloak as normal. And there's all the false leads and misunderstandings that are inevitable if you find things out that way. But, because of the need to go through the whole climactic evening twice, the mystery gets sorted out relatively early in the book (not in narrative time; it's still the end of the school year), and we get to spend a lovely long time with the straightforward adventure parts.
Oh, and incidentally, although I really enjoyed the movie, I think the book is so much better because in a book it's perfectly acceptable to spend plenty of time explaining something that happened twelve years ago. They have to sort of rush through it in the movie.