5 Owls Harry Potter Reread- Chamber of Secrets

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Apologies for the lateness of this post! Hooray for Leap Day, we made it in under the wire.

The Sorcerer’s Stone was a thorough introduction to the magical world Harry Potter discovers on his 11th birthday, and in Chamber of Secrets, he (and we) begin to see a bit deeper into the history and culture of the Wizarding world. We were welcomed into the Weasley’s home. We spent time with ghosts. We learned about magical dueling. And, we begin to see the role of prejudice and bigotry within Hogwarts and Wizard society. All of these things, and other themes in Chamber, are explored over the course of the series.

We hope you had a great time reading the second book in this exciting series, and will join us in reading the next installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban! Discussions for book #3 will be up in the middle of March. But for now, please enjoy discussing the events of this book in the comments!

  • Did you like this book? Hate it? Did it remind you of something you’ve read or seen before?
  • Hermione breaks the rules in this book. Why did she feel that this was necessary? When is breaking the rules the right thing to do?
  • If you could hear this same story from another person’s point of view, who would you choose?

  • How are fear and hatred represented in The Chamber of Secrets?
“[The Sorting Hat] only put me in Gryffindor,” said Harry in a defeated voice, “because I asked not to go in Slytherin….”
Exactly,”  said Dumbledore, beaming once more. “Which makes you very different from Tom Riddle. It is our choices, Harry, that show who we truly are, far more than our abilities.*” Harry sat motionless in his chair stunned.
*emphasis added

  • How do Harry’s choices show who he truly is?

  • Do you agree with Dumbledore?
What did we miss? Is there anything you would like to discuss or any questions you and your family had? Did you have a favorite quote or a favorite scene?
Please introduce them in the comments.

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We ask library patrons under 13 to participate in these discussions with adult supervision. We would like to encourage families to incorporate discussion questions into their at-home book chats. Discussions are open to first time readers, and super-fans, so please limit spoilers to the book currently being discussed and previous ones only.  There will be a second post, later in the month for overarching theories and ideas, and for connecting what happens in this book to events in future installments.

Please be respectful.

Librarian’s Pick: The Janes – Louisa Luna

The Janes by Louise Luna jacket“The similarly determined Alice Vega of Louise Luna’s The Janes is a former bounty hunter, now private investigator, known for her skills in locating missing people and her relentless drive to find answers no matter the method (which readers will remember from Luna’s first Vega novel, Two Girls Down).

When two Latinx teen girls are found dead near the Mexican border, a commander from the San Diego police department hires Vega to identify the victims and find any other girls who might be missing as part of a sex-trafficking operation. What made him think of Alice? Well, her aforementioned skills, her willingness to stay out of the spotlight—and the fact that one of the girls had a piece of paper in her hand with Vega’s name written on it.

Vega calls Max “Cap” Caplan, whom she worked with in Two Girls Down, and offers him $10,000 to help her. He’s a calm and thoughtful retired detective who trusts her completely, even when things get (more than) a little wild. Together, the two make an intelligent, innovative team that gets results, whether using the serial numbers on IUDs to track down sex-trafficking perpetrators or intuitively and masterfully improvising when interviewing wary criminals.

That’s why it’s decidedly odd that, once they go to the commander with suspects and theories about the workings of the crime ring, he tells them to back off—he’ll update the DEA and SDPD, and handle it from there. Not surprisingly, Vega and Cap do the opposite of backing off. Instead, they push even harder, diving into dangerous situations with glee (Vega) and reluctant optimism (Cap), determined to roust the bad guys and expose wrongdoing no matter where it lives.

Luna skillfully balances tragedy and humor throughout, via blood-pressure-raising fight scenes and stressful suspense, plus hints of romantic tension between Vega and Cap. She also offers a fascinating and disturbing look at how a criminal enterprise might work, pulling in various complex threads while crafting a story that’s wholly believable and sad.

The Janes is a superbly entertaining read, especially for readers who are already fans of the amazing Vega, whose Jack Reacher-esque sense of justice offers reassurance that, no matter how long it takes, no bad deed will go unpunished.”

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Owl’s Nest Review: The Best of Iggy by Annie Barrows

Iggy doesn’t mean to be bad, he just wants to have fun! Except sometimes that fun, can be a bad idea. One thing leads to another and Iggy finds himself grounded in his room, suspended from school and feeling terrible because he made a teacher cry!
What did he do that was so bad?
A funny read for fans of The Terrible Two by Mac , Big Nate by Lincoln Pierce and Judy Moody and Stink by Megan McDonald Grades 4 and up

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Librarian’s Pick: When Time Stopped – Ariana Neumann

When Time Stopped“In 1941, the first Neumann family member was taken by the Nazis, arrested in German-occupied Czechoslovakia for bathing in a stretch of river forbidden to Jews. He was transported to Auschwitz. Eighteen days later his prisoner number was entered into the morgue book.

Of thirty-four Neumann family members, twenty-five were murdered by the Nazis. One of the survivors was Hans Neumann, who, to escape the German death net, traveled to Berlin and hid in plain sight under the Gestapo’s eyes. What Hans experienced was so unspeakable that, when he built an industrial empire in Venezuela, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it. All his daughter Ariana knew was that something terrible had happened.

When Hans died, he left Ariana a small box filled with letters, diary entries, and other memorabilia. Ten years later Ariana finally summoned the courage to have the letters translated, and she began reading. What she discovered launched her on a worldwide search that would deliver indelible portraits of a family loving, finding meaning, and trying to survive amid the worst that can be imagined.

When Time Stopped is an unputdownable detective story and an epic family memoir, spanning nearly ninety years and crossing oceans. Neumann brings each relative to vivid life. In uncovering her father’s story after all these years, she discovers nuance and depth to her own history and liberates poignant and thought-provoking truths about the threads of humanity that connect us all.”

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Librarian’s Pick: A Longer Fall – Charlaine Harris

A Longer Fall by Charlaine Harris jacketA Longer Fall, Charlaine Harris’ sequel to An Easy Death, is just as gritty as its predecessor. Harris’ prose is blunt and uncomplicated, matching Lizbeth’s general sensibility, and lending the novel a welcome readability. This straightforward style meshes well with the first-person narration, implying that the protagonist is relating events in her own words as she remembers them. Each character is filtered through Lizbeth’s biases, resulting in a refreshingly direct story, albeit one in which everyone uses roughly the same cadence and vocabulary and some of the plot twists are foreshadowed into predictability.”

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Librarian’s Pick: The Regrets – Amy Bonnaffons

The Regrets by Amy Bonnaffons

“For weeks, Rachel has been noticing the same golden-haired young man sitting at her Brooklyn bus stop, staring off with a melancholy air. When, one day, she finally musters the courage to introduce herself, the chemistry between them is undeniable: Thomas is wise, witty, handsome, mysterious, clearly a kindred spirit. There’s just one tiny problem: He’s dead.
Stuck in a surreal limbo governed by bureaucracy, Thomas is unable to “cross over” to the afterlife until he completes a 90-day stint on earth, during which time he is forbidden to get involved with a member of the living — lest he incur “regrets.” When Thomas and Rachel break this rule, they unleash a cascade of bizarre, troubling consequences.
Set in the hallucinatory borderland between life and death, The Regrets is a gloriously strange and breathtakingly sexy exploration of love, the cataclysmic power of fantasies, and the painful, exhilarating work of waking up to reality, told with uncommon grace and humor by a visionary artist at the height of her imaginative power.”