I also think the third film is far and away the best so far-- much more of an artistic piece than simply a shallow visual portrayal of the book, as the first two seemed. More's the pity that Cuaron will not be directing the next one. Though I would have liked to see a little more of Crookshanks, and I'm sorry the film left out the explanation of who Mooney, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs actually were (and why).

The appeal of the books, for me, is the way magic and mundane are interwoven, and that things are never quite what they seem. Even more than the 'big' stories, I love the little touches that make Rowling's world so vivid and unexpected: the Weasleys' clock, the garden gnomes, the Monster Book of Monsters... We can debate all day about what it all symbolises, or about whether it is great literature (sure, her prose is a little awkward sometimes, but what a storyteller!). I think Rowling has a remarkable ability to tap into a young person's sense of possibility and wonder (there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...)-- and I would guess this is one reason why kids consume the books so avidly.

Going right back to something Blackcatter asked, about how many kids who read Harry Potter will read anything 'real', and about whether reading this was any different from watching movies or playing video games. On the first point-- what makes JK Rowling's work less 'real' than anything else written for young people? And on the second: watching tv shows/movies is a passive activity. You're spoon-fed all you need to know, and the brain switches off. Reading stimulates the imagination, and encourages the brain to fill in the blanks, to create pictures, to ask questions. To suggest that the Harry Potter books don't do that suggests to me either an adult's failure to think like a young person, or literary snobbery (nothing personal, just my an opinion on the comment). There are many many young people for whom Harry Potter is the first book they've ever read willingly-- and once they've read it, who says they won't go on to read War and Peace?