Poor unloved CoS!

[Jerri/Dan Chase]

No: HPFGUIDX 183002

Add me to those who enjoyed CoS.  Ranking the books is difficult, as 
for me they are a part of a whole.  I can name the one I like the 
least, but it is sort of like saying, what is my favorite part of my 
digestive track?  The throat, the stomach, the large intestine, the 
small intestine, the colon, etc?  They all are needed.  And CoS has 
great parts.  I admit that if JKR had only written the first two 
books, I would rank them as "good children's books" along with many, 
many other "good children's books".  But, the fact that it took PoA, 
GoF, and the rest to make it a powerful series doesn't make the first 
books less important.  I may like PoA best, but without what we learn 
from the first two, it wouldn't be nearly as good.

And, CoS does grow a LOT when read after HBP and DH.  Now that we know 
about Horcruxes.  Now that we know how important what happened at the 
dueling club will turn out to be.  Now that we know a lot more about 
house elves.  And I always liked Dobby.  But I like him even more once 
I met Winky, the Hogwarts House Elves, Kreacher, and the house elf who 
worked for H. Smith, and came to understand JKR's elves.

By the way, in a later book JKR seems to have Harry blame Dobby for 
the loss of the bones in his arm.  But Dobby only broke the bones, it 
took Lockhart to remove them!  As (what's her name, the school nurse, 
"Poppy") says, she can repair bones easily, regrowing them is hard.

Also, add me to the list of folks who enjoyed the chapter "The Other 
Minister".  I think it is very clever and amusing, and I wish that we 
could have heard JKR read it out loud at the release party, as she had 
planned to do, although I understand why she had to change her plans, 
do to world events.

Jerri