(NOTE: while this post is current, scroll on the sidebar —in a separate tab or window—to click to listen to Hedwig’s Theme while reading 😀)

Nudged by Sheila at Book Journey, I recently completed (for the 4th time) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (CoS), the second book in the “Harry Potter” series, and I continue to be amazed by the storytelling skills Jo(anne) Rowling possesses. Her characters, world and plotting were (are) so well-constructed and clear in her mind (though I know she had to occasionally check on certain details as she wrote the latter books), everything stayed true from the first book through the last. This vividness has afforded us, as readers, the experience of knowing these characters and her wizard world as acutely defined and “real.” Continue reading →