Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a gripping, darker Hogwarts story for 11 year olds that opens with Voldemort's followers out in the open.

What happens

It doesn't start with Harry at all. It starts in the Prime Minister's office, late at night, with a portrait coughing politely on the wall. (Being the non-magical Prime Minister has never been much fun.)

The Minister for Magic climbs out of the fireplace with bad news. A bridge collapse, a so-called hurricane and two murders all had a wizarding cause. Voldemort's Death Eaters are on the loose. The Dementors have deserted their prison and are breeding, which is why there's a cold, gloomy mist everywhere in the middle of July.

It's a brilliant way in, and quite funny too. The poor Prime Minister can't understand why wizards don't just sort it all out with magic!

Then chapter two turns cold. Two sisters, Narcissa and Bellatrix, go to see Snape in his dingy little house at Spinner's End. Narcissa is desperate. Voldemort has given her sixteen-year-old son Draco a dangerous task, and she begs Snape to keep him safe. Snape makes her a promise that can never be broken.

Whose side is Snape really on? Your reader will be asking that a lot.

This is a late book in the series, and it reads like one. There's a lot of history behind every conversation, and Harry also learns much more about Voldemort's past, with Dumbledore's help. If your reader has come this far, they'll be desperate to know.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

This is one of the darker books. The opening chapters talk about real murders, including a witch killed in a locked room, and a curse kills a fox in a flash of green light. The grown-ups are frightened, and it shows. It reads at the very top of the shelf.

If your reader has grown up alongside Harry and is ready for the story to get more serious, they'll be gripped. If they're a younger reader racing through the series, it might be worth taking this one a little more slowly.

What to read next

And if they've landed on this book first, go back to where it all began with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and the Dursleys of number four, Privet Drive, who are proud to be perfectly normal.