The Summer of Harry Potter: HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

I've just finished book 5 in my Summer of Harry Potter.  You can read about my experience so far:

HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE

HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS

HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE

I do believe ORDER OF THE PHOENIX is the longest of the novels, and so far, it's my favorite. By this point, I really care about what Harry is going through. Much of the book is a recording of his thoughts and feelings, and I think that's often my favorite part of a book. Even if you strip away Voldemort and Professor Umbridge and all the magical happenings at Hogwarts, this book really shows that tumultuous time of teenagehood, when the struggles are, "where do I fit? who am I, anyway? what's it all for?"

Here are some passages I particularly enjoyed -- and I gotta say, I really like J.K. Rowling as a YA writer. She just nails these scenes- esp. the kissing one. :)

IN WHICH HARRY IS HUMBLE:

"Listen to me!" said Harry, almost angrily, because Ron and Hermione were both smirking now. "Just listen to me, all right: It sounds great when you say it like that, but all that stuff was luck-- I didn't know what I was doing half the time, I didn't plan any of it, I just did whatever I could think of, and I nearly always had help --"
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SOMETHING FUNNY:


"Hold yer hippogriffs, I haven' finsihed me story yet." (Hagrid)
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HARRY'S FIRST KISS:

"You're a r-really good teacher, you know," said Cho, with a watery smile. "I've never been able to Stun anything before."
"Thanks" said Harry awkwardly.
they looked at each other for a long moment. Harry felt a burning desire to run from the room and, at the same time, a complete inability to move his feet.
"Mistletoe," said Cho quietly, pointing at the ceiling over his head.
"yeah," said Harry. His mouth was very dry. "It's probably full of nargles, though."
"What are nargles?"
"No idea," said Harry. She had moved Closer. His brain seemed to have been Stunned. "You have to ask Loony. Luna, i mean.
Cho made a funny noise halfway between a sob and a laugh. She was even nearer him now. He could have counted the freckles on her nose.
"I really like you, Harry."
He could not think. A tingling sensation was spreading throughout him, paralyzing his arms, legs, and brain.
she was much too close. He could see every tear clinging to her eyelashes...
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ON UNDERSTANDING GIRLS' FEELINGS:

"Don't you understand how Cho's feeling at the moment?" she asked
"No," said Harry and Ron Together.
Hermione sighed and laid down her quill.
"Well, obviously, she's feeling very sad, because of Cedric dying. Then I expect she's feeling confused because she liked Cedric and now she likes Harry, and she can't work out who she likes best. Then she'll be feeling guilty, thinking it's an insult ot Cedric's memory to be kissing Harry at all, and she'll be worrying about what everyone else might say about her if she starts going out with Harry. And she probably can't work out what her feelings toward Harry are anyway, because he was the one who was with Cedric when Cedric died, so that's all very mixed up and painful. Oh, and she's afraid she'd going to be thrown off the Ravenclaw Quidditch team because she's been flying so badly."
A slightly stunned silence greeted the end of this speech, then Ron said, "One person can't feel all that at once, they'd explode.
"Just because you've got the emotional range of a teaspoon doesn't mean we all have," said Hermione nastily, picking up her quill again.
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ON DEATH:

"It seemed impossible that there could be people in the world who still desired food, who laughed, who neither knew nor cared that Sirius Black was gone forever. Sirius seemed a million miles away already, even if a part of Harry still believed that if he had only pulled back that veil, he would have found Sirius looking back at him, greeting him, perhaps, with his laugh like a bark."


Yep, this one is my favorite so far! (Favorite movie so far? CHAMBER OF SECRETS, followed by GOBLET OF FIRE)