Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was first published in the UK in 1997.  The series has become so popular that people of all ages around the world have been reading and talking about them for the past eighteen years.  While I didn’t find out about the books until the first movie adaptation and HP fans took over movie theaters everywhere, by time the final book was released I was in line to get my copy of it along with everyone else.  I didn’t care that I was an adult in my early 20s getting extremely excited about a middle-grade Fantasy book.  I had to have all of the books, and all of them had to be hardcover editions.  To give you an idea of how rare that is, the only other complete series I own that are all hardcovers is C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia.

Despite my love for all things Harry Potter, I’ve never re-read the series, until now.  For anyone who wants to join me as I continue to read each book over the next six months, I’ve put together some discussion questions.  The discussion questions for each book will be posted on the last day of each month, and then there will be a final Harry Potter Book Night celebration post, possibly with a giveaway, on February 4th.  There will also be a link up each month for all of you to share your HP related posts.  I will look through all of them and then feature one or more in the following month’s discussion post.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone Discussion Questions:

1. How does Harry’s experience with living with the Dursleys build his character?
2. How are Dudley and Draco alike? How are they different?
3. Why do you think Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor instead of any of the other houses?  Why do you think he didn’t want to be sorted into Slytherin?
4. With so much corruption coming out of the house of Slytherin, why do you think it is one of the houses at Hogwarts?
5. If you consider the other houses to be symbols of several virtues (bravery, loyalty, wisdom), is Slytherin’s cunning and using “any means/ To achieve their ends.” a virtue?  Why or why not?
6. What makes the friendship between Harry, Hermione, and Ron a real friendship?  Is Malfoy’s friendship with Crabbe and Goyle a real friendship? Is Voldemort’s relationship with Quirrell a real friendship?  Why or why not?
7. What do you think of Harry and Ron’s reliance on Hermione’s intelligence to get them out of difficult situations?
8. If you had an invisibility cloak, what would you do and where would you go?
9. What do you think you would see if you were to look into the mirror of Erised?

If you’ve got a Harry Potter related post, share it in the linky.  Feel free to answer the discussion questions, write your own, or do something else entirely.  As long as it’s related to Harry Potter, preferably the first book, you can share it for the chance of it being featured in next month’s post.