Pottermore launched the official Harry Potter book club this morning, revealing the themes participants will explore while reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
The reading of the first book will take place over the course of five weeks. Pottermore plans to explore themes like magic, education and friendship. Each theme is accompanied by discussion questions. You can see the current schedule below:
- Week 1: Welcome to the Wizarding World Book Club: How did you discover the Harry Potter stories?
- Week 2: Magic and the Muggle World: Is the wizarding world as well-hidden as it likes to believe? Why are the Dursleys so afraid of magic?
- Week 3: First Impressions: What are Harry and Draco’s similarities? What first makes Harry believe he is a wizard?
- Week 4: Education: Is rebellion a good or bad thing at Hogwarts? Who learns the most from the troll in the dungeon incident?
- Week 5: Friendship: Which friend has shown Harry the most loyalty so far? Do you agree with Hermione’s belief that friendship and bravery are more important than books and cleverness?
Check out the Wizarding World Book Club’s promo video:
Discussions will be facilitated through Twitter via Pottermore’s book club account, @wwbookclub. Those discussions will take place every Friday at 4 p.m. BST (British Summer Time). For those of you in America, that’s 11 a.m. ET (Eastern Time). The first discussion will take place this Friday.
Pottermore first announced the book club last May. The book club’s launch marks the 20 year anniversary since the publication of Philosopher’s Stone. Bloomsbury published Rowling’s first novel June 26, 1997.
We’ve been eagerly awaiting the book club’s launch, however, Pottermore’s book club material seems scarce at this point. Logging in and officially joining the club leads to a calendar that lists the upcoming themes. Only the first theme is currently explorable, linking participants to related Pottermore articles.
We weren’t sure if Pottermore would include message boards or something similar to facilitate ongoing conversations. At this point, it looks like all book club interaction will take place via Twitter. In other words, if you really hope to participate in this book club, you’re not going to want to miss out on those scheduled Twitter conversations. It looks as though they’ll be at the core of Pottermore’s book club.
Pottermore users can join the Wizarding World Book Club here.
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