Synopsis
Sixth-year Hogwarts student Harry Potter gains valuable insights into the boy Voldemort once was, even as his own world is transformed by maturing friendships, schoolwork assistance from an unexpected source, and devastating losses.

Details
Publication Date:	2005-07-16
Series:	Harry Potter Series
Illustrator:	Mary Grandpre

Size
Length:	652 pages
Height:	9.3 in
Width:	6.3 in
Thickness:	2.0 in
Weight:	36.0 oz

Publisher's Note
In...HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, the last chapter, titled "The Second War Begins," started: 'In a brief statement Friday night, Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named has returned to this country and is active once more. "It is with great regret that I must confirm that the wizard styling himself Lord - well, you know who I mean - is alive among us again," said Fudge.' HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE takes up the story of Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry at this point in the midst of the storm of this battle of good and evil.

Industry Reviews
"[T]he achievement of the Potter books is the same as that of the great classics of children's literature, from the Oz novels to THE LORD OF THE RINGS: the creation of a richly imagined and utterly singular world, as detailed, as improbable and as mortal as our own."
New York Times Book Review (07/16/2005)

"If Harry grew up in the last book, here he becomes a man, learning the true impact of the last book's prophecy, and the importance of love as the antidote to fear."
Publishers Weekly Annex (07/18/2005)

"Love is much more important to Rowling than magic. The real mystery, for her, is the human heart. She has always been more interested in the hand that wields the wand, the way the enchantment illuminates the wizard who casts it."
Time (07/25/2005)

"To read Rowling's novels as an adult is to sink into a half-remembered state of childhood rapture, the trance produced when you gobbled up fantasies for the first time. In the series's fourth volume, ''HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE,'' Dumbledore lets Harry stumble across the Pensieve, a collecting dish for excess memories. To extract a memory, a wizard holds a wand to his temple, draws a silvery strand of thought from his head and taps it into the basin. Any wizard who touches the swirling contents of the bowl drops into the visions it contains, reliving them as if he had been present at their inception. Dipping into the fiction that is Rowling's Pensieve, adult readers tumble into an eerie but familiar realm, containing not only Rowling's images of Harry but their own memories of books they loved when they were Harry's age and younger."
New York Times Book Review - Liesl Schillinger (07/31/2005)

"This newest excursion into the Potterverse will leave readers pleased, amused, excited, scared, infatuated, delighted, sad, surprised, thoughtful...."
Kirkus online (07/25/2005)

"I admit, it's a bit of a shock to realize that Harry Potter is quite nearly an adult...It's heartening, both as an author and a reader, to see that J.K. Rowling is brave enough to experiment with her beloved series, and that she has remained true to the emotional and physical development of her characters."
Entertainment Weekly - Christopher Paolini (07/29/2005)