Welcome to Area 13

Sol's Guide to
HARRY POTTER

Project HappyChild aims to provide resources for children of all ages - and two themes which enduringly occupy kids' interest are Pokémon and Harry Potter. Both of these have become part of the "fabric of childhood" - there aren't many children who use the Internet who aren't familiar with one or the other - and so it was felt essential to have "guides" on this website for both [Pokémon is now in Area 12].

Pokémon and Harry Potter are wonderful entertainment for kids (and many adults!) - but both of them are so complex and have so many inter-related facets that often children simply can't remember all the different factors and end up feeling slightly swamped.

Sol's Guide to The Magical World of Harry Potter has been created to link together the extraordinary range of themes that run through the series of seven main books - the last of which, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", was published worldwide on Saturday 21st July 2007.

In order to ensure that people don't accidentally find out elements of the story "in advance" (for any of the seven books) the web pages have been subdivided into separate areas for the many individual categories [eg Diagon Alley, spells, creatures, events, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, magical books, Quidditch, wizards, characters, Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts staff, etc.], and then further divided into separate areas for each of the seven scheduled "main books" in the series, each area being colour-coded so it's easy for visitors to identify information that relates to books they've previously read.

All the Harry Potter books are wonderful reading - Jo Rowling has probably done more to get kids to enjoy reading than any other human being on this planet! - but we have to be truthful and admit that it's becoming difficult to remember exactly who did what, where, and in which book.

Given the apparent tendency for the Harry Potter Series to find its way into "exam syllabuses", Sol's Guide to The Magical World of Harry Potter is designed to provide a useful reference source where people can "track back" on any particular character, creature, spell, artefact, location, event, etc., to "fill in the gaps" and gain maximum enjoyment (and understanding) of the books.

We've also created a page about Jo Rowling herself which gives links to all the relevant background information and photos, including a link to the Bloomsbury site where kids can sign up to the web club and get an e-mail birthday greeting from J.K. Rowling, and giving details of Jo's involvement with the National Council for One Parent Families and her amazing gift of two spin-off Harry Potter books (separate from the main series of 7) which raised an incredible amount of money for "Comic Relief" during 2001. There's also a link to Jo Rowling's personal website ....

Sol's guide isn't intended in any way as a "substitute" for the books - but judging by the visit levels to this area of the site already, there are untold numbers of people worldwide (both adults and children) whose interest in these wonderful novels is never likely to be diminished.

There's no commercial advertising (at all) on the Guide - we're simply creating an Internet-based 3-D-tapestry of Harry Potter's magical world and fashioning multi-layered foundations to help us to draw the many, many threads of this fabric gradually together.

Jo Rowling's books are unique and deserve a "unique tribute" -
which we trust this will more than adequately provide.

The massive amount of set-up work to engineer the interlinking of tens of thousands of keywords (characters, magic and spells, locations, items, creatures) from 198 chapters in all seven books has now been completed !!! However in the light of ongoing uncertainties about 'Harry Potter copyrights' (affecting all websites or site areas with Harry-Potter-related themes), visitors may wish to read the Special Note of 1st July 2008.

What this area *does* now offer is a unique insight into the way "words" are used in the series of seven Harry Potter books, an overview of how and why the books have been so successful - and a clear demonstration of "how to write like J K Rowling", for the many children aiming to follow in her footsteps ...