If you are reading, teaching, or parenting Harry Potter fans, this indispensable sourcebook takes you behind the Potter legend, into the life of its author J. K. Rowling, and gives young readers many more hours of enjoyment beyond reading the novels themselves. In the tradition of Beacham Publishing's critical works on young adult writers, the new sourcebook series provides the highest level of critical insights to help teachers, librarians and parents explain the joy of literature to children.

Explore the origins and mysteries of Harry’s world, its history, science, magic, mythology, setting, characters, themes, food and sports.

The sourcebook includes projects and activities for young readers, questions that generate lively discussions between parents and children, websites for internet research by young surfers, lesson plans for teachers and resources for librarians.

Elizabeth D. Schafer earned a Ph.D. in the History of Science and Technology from Auburn University and completed graduate courses in children’s literature and creative writing at Hollins University where she received the Shirley Henn Memorial Award for Critical Scholarship of Children’s Literature in 1998. Schafer has won awards in the Writers’ Digest national writing competition: non-rhyming poetry (1994), children’s non-fiction (1997), and children’s non-fiction and fiction (1998). She lives and writes near Auburn, Alabama.