My Ranking of the Harry Potter books

After re-reading Books 1-4 in the series, I’ve been slow about starting on Book 5, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The reasons, I think, are two-fold. Book 5 is my least favorite in the series, although let me be clear that I greatly enjoy all the books. I also suspect that it might ironically generate the most material for my blog. My plan is to read through it slowly, because it brings up many “educational” aspects allowing plenty of room for commentary and speculation on my part.

Since I’ve mentioned that Book 5 is my least favorite, it’s only fair that I rank the books and provide some subjective commentary. So without further ado, here are my rankings from most favored to least favored: 3, 6, 7, 1, 4, 2, 5.

The Prisoner of Azkaban is just a romp of a story. In my opinion, it has excellent pacing, engaging twists and turns, interesting and memorable characters, and introduces two very interesting objects – the Marauder’s Map and Time Turner. Both objects are integrated very well into the book, and the Marauder’s Map goes on to feature prominently in some of the following books. The ending sequence is superb and you hit the “point of no return” reasonably early in the book where you just have to get all the way to the end of the story. Very well set up in my opinion!

Books 6 and 7 are very interesting because they aren’t mainly about Harry Potter, but about Voldemort and Dumbledore respectively – both of whom have been up to this point rather mysterious and intriguing. Snape also features prominently across both books. We know quite a bit about Harry, Ron and Hermione from the earlier books so it’s a change of scenery to peek into the lives of other interesting key characters. While I found Dumbledore more interesting than Voldemort, I think the story-telling in Book 6, with its advantage of being the penultimate cliffhanger to set up the last book, having a superior storyline. Book 7 has a little too many things going on, although the positioning of Shell Cottage at the turning point of the story is excellent.

I rank the first book next because it holds a special place as the first introduction to the characters in the book. It’s an engaging compact story and the scenes with the mirror are some of the best parts of the book. One also feels the same sense of wonder as Harry, being transported into this new magical world. The fourth book is a pivot in the series. While the story stretches belief in certain parts, it has many interesting bits – learning about other schools, the merpeople, the Death Eaters, and the Pensieve.

The Chamber of Secrets is in the vein of many mystery books – there’s a killer on the loose and the protagonists need to find out who, how, what, and why. We get a little bit of history into Hagrid and Riddle. The diary is interesting as a pre-Pensieve, but the story is uneven at the end as Tom Riddle reveals who he is. Lockhart is a little annoying as a character, and the storyline features some weak parts – it feels a little less cohesive.

The Order of the Phoenix starts off in a promising way, but Harry’s constant whining throughout the book is one of the main detracting features. I didn’t find the Prophecy storyline as compelling, although there are some interesting parts of the book. Certainly the educational aspects, the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) interplay between the Ministry of Magic and Dumbledore, the forming of D.A., and Legilimency. I am looking forward to re-reading it next, and I might start this weekend. So I expect to be waxing about education and Hogwarts shortly!

That’s my ranking of the books and I’m sticking to it! At some point I’ll have to rank the movies but that means re-watching them and I haven’t decided yet if I want to do so at the risk of constraining my imagination.