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I finished reading at 3am yesterday. Even without the pressure of a deadline, and my son peering over my shoulder to monitor my progress, I may well have read it all day and stayed up to finish it. It just kept me reading.

After a deft catching-up chapter, in which the Minister of Magic keeps the Muggle Prime Minister informed (and the Muggle Prime Minister wishes he'd been kept in the dark), and a histrionic and absolutely vital scene between Snape and Draco Malfoy's mother, it's back to Hogwarts, where things are pretty much the same as usual.

This sameness as usual is one of the most attractive things about the Harry Potter books.

It is a source of pleasure to us how well we know these teachers and pupils, and the workings of school life. If there is a new spell to learn, we want to know how each of Harry's friends will do.

We want to help Harry pick his quidditch team, and to know who will replace Lee Jordon doing game commentary.

J K Rowling's fans are cognoscenti; they get a lot of pleasure in what they already know about her world and in her variations on previous inventions.

Which is not to say that there is nothing new.

There's plenty. The Hogwarts kids are growing up (and their readers must with them). Harry is no longer the grumpy and aggrieved teen of book five. In fact, he is positive to the point of obsession about a number things – some useful in the fight against Voldemort, and some only to be expected in a boy of his age.

Ron and Hermione are less Harry's lieutenants than their own delightful double-act. And Ron's sister Ginny, a character I've always liked, gets much more to do.

Then there is the sheer invention of the book. Rowling excels in surprise at the level of novelty, and she had me laughing out loud at the stock in Fred and George Weasley's joke shop, and speculating about the uses of the book's many potions.

Potions are a bit of a feature of Potter Six. In fact, liquids are: the liquid mists of memories in Dumbledore's Pensieve, blood, a certain dark lake pictured on the back cover, and some scary poisons.

Who the Half-Blood Prince is, and why that person should proudly call themself a half-blood, drives much of the plot of book six, and, I suspect, the next, concluding book of the series.

Indeed, if I'm guessing Rowling's intentions correctly, The Half-Blood Prince proves that Rowling is playing a long game with her plots. She shows her hand in an exciting climax, with a devastating death, and then – I think – quietly slips one of her cards back up her sleeve.

All of which means that this reader, instead of just patiently anticipating the reliable pleasure of her two or three-yearly immersion in the world of blast-ended screwts and fraught discussions around the Gryffindor common-room fire, really can't wait to see what happens next, and how it all ends.

"Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince"
By J.K. Rowling
Illustrations by Mary Grandpre
Arthur A. Levine Books, New York, 2005, 632 pages

"THE TROUBLE is, the other side can do magic, too," says the new Minister of Magic, the leonine Rufus Scrimgeour, at the beginning of J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the much-awaited sixth installment in the magically best-selling Hogwarts series.

After years of waiting, faithful readers will find themselves flung, full-bodied, into the Second War hinted at in the final chapter in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth book. It is a war between the magical community against the Death Eaters, the dangerous followers of Lord Voldemort, aka Tom Marvolo Riddle, aka He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

In this, supposedly the penultimate book in Rowling's Potter saga, Harry Potter and friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger arrive at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin

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Nevertheless, Harry must face all these with the additional challenges of growing up: He is now Quidditch Captain and the subject of much interest, especially from the girls. Yes, the idea of romance at Hogwarts, only glimpsed fitfully in "Order," is fleshed out fully in "Prince," as the 16-year-old friends find themselves in quite a few romantic predicaments. It also pays to be wary of love potions. As Harry thought: "He had an inkling that this might happen sooner or later. But he was not sure how he felt about it."

Yet that is only one of many elements surrounding Hogwarts life that "Prince" goes into, and Rowling's time writing the book has been well-spent. There is a palpable excitement here in naming things, adding new characters and bringing back old ones to the fold.

A bottled elixir of luck and a semi-transparent wizard are only some of the funny ideas bounding within "Prince's" pages. But Rowling has also brought the dangers and horrors much closer to Hogwarts. The magic war has spilled over to the Muggle world, and some characters are already dead at the book's beginning-with more blood to be shed.

Amazingly useful

Powerful Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore and Harry begin searching the past in hopes of understanding Voldemort's plans-and how to stop them. In the meantime, a battered old potions textbook proves amazingly useful for Harry in his potions class, a book with notes and scribbles by "the Half-Blood Prince."

Harry puzzles at this Prince's identity even as he obsesses over what he believes is rival Draco Malfoy's evil designs. Oh, and Harry fancies a girl for real.

This is pretty much what the readers want, a well-written, compact (it's actually shorter than the two books that preceded it), gripping tale with twists thrown in.

"Now she seemed older and much more serious and purposeful," says Harry of a witch he knows, and this is an accurate description for both Rowling and this book.

"Prince" is much darker than the earlier books, as Rowling is determined that her narrative grows up and grows more sophisticated as the protagonists increase in years. There is still the expected dense exposition in parts (particularly when Dumbledore and Harry get to talking) but this time, Rowling keeps the book rolling to a shocking finale that clearly lays the groundwork for the final Harry Potter book.

Rowling just keeps the scenes going, one development piling on top of the other, giving "Prince" a very busy yet controlled feel. The confidence in the lines is reminiscent of the third book, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," the best of the series thus far.

Hardheaded hero

Harry himself matures very nicely in "Prince," the edginess of a young adult starting to kick in, a hardheaded hero and a much more sympathetic young man of destiny. Ron is still funny (wait for the wisecracks, they're brilliant) and Hermione remains as obsessive-compulsive as ever. But the expanded cast, now including virtually everyone who appeared in the earlier books, also gives "Prince" its packed feel, despite being several hundred pages shorter than "Order." We reacquaint ourselves with Ginny, Luna, Neville, Lavender, Parvati and Seamus, among others.

Much of that also has to do with the unexpected twist, which will leave some readers open-mouthed. It is both a smart and surprising decision, one that clearly injects many new emotions and possibilities to the Harry Potter mythos.

The identity of this Prince is also quite clever, leading characters and readers feeling the pain of betrayal as well. It also makes the wait for the next book so much more meaningful-and impossibly long.

War has come to Hogwarts and while open combat has yet to erupt, it crawls and slithers through the corridors. There will be casualties. There will be sacrifices, old heroes and revealed villains. It is a time for great stories and an occasion when one remembers the new scars on Harry's hand: "I must not tell lies."

"Azkaban" remains the best Harry Potter book ever, but J.K. Rowling's newest creation, "Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince" transfigures itself into clear close second, and well worth the wait. In wizardly words, fifty points to the House of Rowling!

New Harry Potter book breaks sales records within day of release

By HILLEL ITALIE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK -- The new Harry Potter book sold an astonishing 6.9 million copies in its first 24 hours, smashing the record held by the previous Potter release. "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" averaged better than 250,000 sales per hour, more than the vast majority of books sell in a lifetime.

This is a cause for celebration, not just for Scholastic, but for book lovers everywhere," said Lisa Holton, president of Scholastic Children's Books, author J.K. Rowling's U.S. publisher.

Sales for the sixth installment of Rowling's fantasy series easily outpaced those for Potter V, "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," which came out in 2003 and sold 5 million copies in the first 24 hours. Acknowledging that some stores quickly ran out of books two years ago, Scholastic has already increased the print run for "Half-Blood Prince" from 10.8 million copies to 13.5 million.

The Scholastic numbers are for the United States only.

Anticipated from the moment fans finished Potter V, the new book has been available virtually everywhere, from price clubs and supermarkets to the Scholastic Web site. Holton said Sunday that a big factor in the new sales record was a six-fold increase in the number of Potter bookstore parties, from 800 to 5,000.

Even allowing for deep discounts on the $29.99 release, "Half-Blood Prince" still easily generated more than $100 million in revenue. It's not only the richest opening in publishing history, but tops the combined estimated take for the weekend's top two movies, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "The Wedding Crashers."

"When a book beats out movies, we're in great shape," Holton said.

Don't knock Harry Potter: He lures kids to reading

Already a blockbuster, the latest Harry Potter book got an expected boost from Pope Benedict XVI who, it turns out, once branded the series a threat to the souls of susceptible Christian youths. Nothing like a dash of controversy to add spice and sales appeal to a novel already hotter than a whole gallon of Texas chili.

Meanwhile, other critics have damned the Potter series for promoting sorcery, making witchcraft appealing, and, oh yes, inspiring millions of youngsters to read.

Well, actually, nobody has attacked the Potter books for hooking children on words, which happens to be why they matter.

Getting millions of youngsters to read anything -- even candy wrappers or movie ticket stubs -- is nothing to shrug off. According to federal test results released last week, in the first years of this decade, America's elementary school students made solid gains in math and reading while middle school students made less progress and older teens almost none.

Maybe instead of knocking "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth book in this series, we should make sure it's in every high school.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, I'm a fan of the fantasy world created by British author J.K. Rowling. Living on a planet menaced by suicide bombers, nuclear threats, killer germs and other perils, I enjoy slipping away sometimes and getting lost in a different world.

It's a world where owls deliver the mail, house-elves do the cooking and cleaning, young wizards gulp butterbeer and Every Flavor Beans, chess pieces argue with chess players about their next moves, magicians transform themselves into dogs and rats, and the forces of good always whip evil.

Harry and his friends aren't perfect, however, and, in their war against the forces of darkness, they sometimes lie and break rules. It is also true that the Potter books keep getting spookier and more soul-shattering as Harry prepares for his final face-off with Lord Voldemort.

All the same, I was startled to discover that some people consider the books threats to Christianity or instruction manuals for the practice of witchcraft and sorcery.

I guess I must have missed something. The Harry Potter books haven't taught me a thing about the actual practices and beliefs of people who consider themselves real witches and warlocks. The spells don't work. The pictures hanging on real walls don't wink or scold. There are no dragons or money-guarding goblins or talking spiders or good-hearted giants or blast-ended skrewts. And you and I can't jump aboard trains invisible to ordinary people and ride off to wizard school.

There really are folks walking this Earth who can suck the joy right out of you, but they aren't dementors. They're our own dysfunctional relatives and friends.

The truth is these books are fairy tales, not all that different from Little Red Riding Hood or Cinderella. But spending time in a fantasy world as rich and rippling with details as the Potter novels gives children something they'll need all their lives: the chance to imagine another world and, perhaps, dream up ways to improve this one.

JK ROWLING promised that this latest instalment, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, would be pivotal in the series of seven books, and she doesn't disappoint.

After the riddles and mysteries which have been set before fans in the previous five books, readers finally get some answers.

The book begins by showing us a dramatically altered wizarding world - there have been big changes at the Ministry for Magic, and Voldemort is powerful enough to come out into the open again, surrounded by his followers.

It's a return to a world we've only heard described before - deaths, fear, mistrust, which is even affecting the Muggle, or non-magical, world.

We're also introduced to terrible new elements of the dark arts, including Inferi, corpses bewitched to do a dark wizard's bidding, as well as the evil secret which enabled Voldemort to survive when the curse designed to kill Harry rebounded.

Yet at the same time, the atmosphere isn't as utterly dark as book five - war may finally have arrived, but everyone knows Harry has been telling the truth, and even better, he becomes much closer to Dumbledore.

And unlike the poisonous atmosphere at Hogwarts in The Order Of The Phoenix, Harry's time at school is more enjoyable too - at least partly because of the mysterious half-blood Prince of the title, although when that mystery is finally solved, it's overshadowed by other events.

Comedy

Romance is on the horizon again - although unsurprisingly not with Cho - helped along by Harry's new reputation as the 'Chosen One', and Ron finally discovers girls in this book too, providing plenty of comedy moments. Inevitably the course of teenage love never runs smooth.

This time some of the major characters take more of a backseat but others take centre stage in their place - especially new character Horace Slughorn, who begins teaching at Hogwarts, and who manages to be a mix of charm and superficiality, weak good intentions plus genuine wizarding skill and powers.

Draco Malfoy also has more to do - no longer simply the two-dimensional figure he's been in previous books, he becomes more than just Harry's nemesis at school.

Most interestingly, Snape also plays a much bigger part in this book - always a shadowy figure, he finally steps into the spotlight. In past books, he has been walking a tightrope, convincing each side he is committed to them.

Both Dumbledore and Voldemort trust him - but only one can be correct. For much of the book, the reader is left in the dark to decide for themselves, but by the end of the book this mystery is solved for good.

Characters

As Rowling has revealed, there will be more deaths in the final books, including major characters, and by the end of the Half-Blood Prince, Harry is dealt a devastating blow when he loses yet another person who is dear to him.

It's shorter than book five, but Rowling packs the pages with information and a lot of the book is dedicated to setting the scene for the final showdown in book seven.

Less action-packed than the earlier books, it's concerned more with explanation than events, although as usual the pace quickens to the breathless finale.

Ending on a darker note, all certainties are swept away by the last page, and the final chapter of Harry's story could prove to be very different.

For fans it'll be just as hard to wait for, especially in the knowledge that the story is nearly over. But in the meantime, book six is proving as magical as ever.

Sales of Harry Potter's latest adventures have beaten the estimated box office take of the weekend's top two movies: "Charlie and The Chocolate Factory" and "The Wedding Crashers" - combined

A book release trumping cinema blockbusters? Who'd a thought?

There's something deeply satisfying about watching conventional wisdom crack and crumble into a million pieces, especially when it involves reading and young people.

The work of Harry's marketers, of course, has a lot to do with the weekend's rush to read. The 5,000 bookstore Potter parties and Internet sales have helped US publisher Scholastic Inc. boost initial printings from only 500,000 six years ago to today's 13.5 million.

But marketing alone can't account for kids' (and not a few adults') eagerness to buddy up with a 600-plus page tome. If there's no "there" there - no compelling plot, characters, or message - there will be no buyers.

Author J.K. Rowling is helping millions of young people turn books into friends. In a much broader context, so are teachers, school administrators, lawmakers, and parents.

Their focus on early reading is producing a payoff. The nation's annual "report card" handed out last week by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, shows white, black, and Hispanic 9-year-olds significantly improving their reading over the last five years. And the performance race gap has narrowed as well. This "puts to rest the notion that achievement gaps are inevitable," said Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, which helps poor schools.

It's encouraging to see negative conventions about reading bite the dust. But it doesn't happen magically. Whether done by an effective author or by a teacher, it takes real work.