Prisoner of Azkaban Discussion: Real-World Connections and Themes Galore

Today in our meeting for Harry Potter Book Club, we had a very productive discussion over Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. We discussed character changes throughout the books and different ways that the characters grew to overcome challenges, and we also discussed what was added to or taken away from the books for the movie adaptations. We noticed that many themes in Harry Potter connect to real world issues. For example, we saw that the character Sirius Black's storyline connects deeply to issues of criminal justice, the Ministry of Magic leaders demonstrate how leaders often make decisions out of fear, and Hermione, as a muggle-born and a woman, shows that people from certain groups with certain stereotypes have to work harder to prove themselves. For the next meeting, we plan to have book 3 finished and possibly get started on book 4 so that we can continue our discussion on themes and explore important plot points. We also hope to start discussing the ways that we can work to tackle these real-world themes in our community.