#79 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

My Rating: 9 out of 10 stars
This was a great book. There were a few more relatively minor differences from the movie in this book than in the first two. Mostly it had to do with the additional detail in the book that wasn’t in the movie or was only hinted to in the movie.

For instance, in the book, we find out that Professor Lupin, in conjunction with James Potter (Harry’s father), Sirius Black, and Peter Pettigrew, are the ones who originally designed and produced the Marauder’s Map. In addition, Harry used the map to discover the hidden passages from Hogwarts to the Wizarding village of Hogsmeade and took a few furtive trips there to join the rest of his class when he was supposed to have remained behind at Hogwarts. Neither of these facts appeared in the movie, most likely in the interest of keeping the movie time down to 2 hours. For that reason, I’m curious to see how much may have to be removed from the book for books 4 through 6 since they’re all much longer than the first three books. The movie for book 4, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, was just released last week and I’m still debating whether to read the book or see the movie first…

See the BookCrossing journal page for this book for more links and information. See more progress on: In 2005 read 100 books.