Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone provides a doorway into a magical world. In addition to garden-variety witches and wizards, there are magic trains, magic candies, and several areas dedicated to magical commerce. There's a castle populated with ghosts, poltergeists, strange creatures, and things that go bump in the night, as well as a forest full of centaurs, unicorns, and creepy crawlies. A boarding school, often thought of as an ordinary thing, becomes tinged through and through with the extraordinary – with magic. Getting mail delivered by owl, learning to Transfigure matches into needles, or finding an invisibility cloak at the bottom of your bed? It's all part of a typical day at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Questions About The Supernatural
- Which Hogwarts class would you most like to take and why?
- What would you do if you received an acceptance letter from Hogwarts?
- For you, what's the most amazing part of the wizarding world Rowling describes?
- If you could make one of the many supernatural creatures in the book real, which would it be and why?
- Why don't the Dursleys like wizards?
- Does Rowling do a good job at making the wizarding world seem real or magic seem possible? Why or why not?
- How is attending a magical school like Hogwarts similar to and different from your schooling experience?