One of the key moments of each book is the “Dumbledore Denouement” – the final conversation, after the story’s climax, in which Dumbledore and Harry have a little chat about what happened.
Here’s a little assignment for Day 5 of Sorcerer’s Stone Week. With the knowledge of Dumbledore’s backstory in mind, go back and re-read the few pages of chapter 17 of Sorcerer’s Stone which comprise this final conversation with Harry after the battle over the stone.
What strikes you about this conversation now? How do you read it differently than when you first read it? What new meanings do Dumbledore’s words take on, if any? What was Rowling really trying to accomplish with Dumbledore in these pages? Maybe a better question: What was Dumbledore really trying to accomplish with Harry in these few pages?
It seemed pretty evident in the first book that Severus Snape was going to be an intriguing character. This is a post dedicated to the greasy potions master. Several questions for consideration and comment:
- In what clever ways did Rowling set up the Snape plot in book one?
- Any Snape foreshadowing that you missed in the discussion from Day 2?
- Reflect on your initial encounter with the character of Snape in reading book one for the first time compared with how you read him in book one now.
- Anything else you want to discuss concerning Snape in Sorcerer’s Stone.
Today is the “official” 10th anniversary of the U.S. release of the first Harry Potter book. Scholastic is celebrating with a cover-to-cover day. The book is being read cover to cover from the seat in New York City from which J.K. Rowling read last year.
Keep up with the whole day here!
Also, today is the “official” release date of the 10th anniversary edition of Sorcerer’s Stone (though many got their copies early).
Foreshadowing is when an author drops subtle hints or clues about something coming later in the story. Rowling did a lot of this, and she’s brilliant at it. And of course, there’s plenty of foreshadowing in Sorcerer’s Stone. Day 2 discussion focuses on Rowling’s use of foreshadowing in the first novel, and it’s a simple discussion starter:
Now that you’ve got the knowledge of all seven books, where do you see clever foreshadowing in Book 1? What’s your favorite foreshadowing from the first book? What things from the first book have taken on new and enhanced meaning since the release of Deathly Hallows?
One of my favorites is Sirius’s motorbike – a device which seemed so innocuous in book one, but which ended up belonging to one of the key players in the story and being the means of magical escape from Privet Drive for book 7. Think about Rowling’s parallelism here: Sirius’s bike brings Harry to 4 Privet Drive for the beginning of his 7 years there, and it takes him away at the end of his 7 years there.
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