Stefanie's Thoughts: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Illustrated Edition

For twelve long years, the dread fortress of Azkaban held an infamous prisoner named Sirius Black. Convicted of killing thirteen people with a single curse, he was said to be the heir apparent to the Dark Lord, Voldemort.
Now he has escaped, leaving only two clues as to where he might be headed: Harry Potter's defeat of You-Know-Who was Black's downfall as well. And the Azkaban guards heard Black muttering in his sleep, "He's at Hogwarts... he's at Hogwarts."

Harry Potter isn't safe, not even within the walls of his magical school, surrounded by his friends. Because on top of it all, there may well be a traitor in their midst.

Hi everyone,

We all know that I'm obsessed with Harry Potter and when my sister got the latest illustrated edition for me for my birthday I couldn't have been more happy (I mean I specifically asked for it, but still!). I immediately dove into it and read it slower than I expected, but I think that's because I did just read the series, therefore I was able to spend more time looking at the illustrations.



Jim Kay does another wonderful job with this one and the illustrations really do give the story a whole new layer. The illustrations really went well with the overall tone and feel of the third adventure; darker, but still has the innocence of our characters.





My one negative would be that the entire Quidditch final wasn't illustrated! Come on; it's like the best part of the entire book (well in my opinion) and it's nothing. Kay has the pages illustrated with background patters, but that's it. I saw on Pottermore there was an image of Harry holding the Quidditch cup, and I thought maybe something like that would make the book.


What's different in this edition than the previous two would be less full page illustrations and more background patterns on the pages. I wonder if this is because of the length of the text and the hope of not having this book be five-hundred pages. I think I kind of missed the overall amount of illustrations, but was still fully in love with the book, because really how many series get an illustrated line!


The sample images that were posted online do a really good job at showcasing the different tones this book takes; the colors go from vibrant reds to the moody/ sullen grey sketches, which really does a perfect job of illustrating growing up.

My favorite illustration was the full page one when Harry, Ron and Hermoine go into the Magical Menagerie and Hermoine buys Crookshanks. I think I liked it the best because it was a full page one and really captured the magic of Diagon Alley and the whole Wizarding world. The lion in The Firebolt chapter was my second one, because I can't help but love Luna and I think it's because I feel we all have a little bit on Luna is us; curious about the world and always learning and growing.



I'm not anxiously waiting for the Goblet of Fire Illustrated edition, but wonder how long the book will be, since Azkaban was a lot longer than I had expected. I read online that it's in the works and if we're going to be treated yearly like we have been the past three years 2018 can't come soon enough!

Until my next review,

Stefanie