Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Parts I & II

by J. K. Rowling, John Tiffany, Jack Thorne

Overview

The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London's West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn't much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781338099133
Publisher:	Scholastic, Inc.
Publication date:	07/31/2016
Series:	Harry Potter
Edition description:	Special Rehearsal Edition
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	3,134
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)
Lexile:	500L (what's this?)
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

J.K. Rowling is the author of the seven Harry Potter novels, which have sold over 450 million copies and have been translated into 79 languages, and three companion books originally published for charity. She is also the author of The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults published in 2012, and, under the pseudonym of Robert Galbraith, is the author of the Cormoran Strike crime series. J.K. Rowling is making her screenwriting debut and is a producer on the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a further extension of the Wizarding World, due for release in November 2016.

Jack Thorne writes for theatre, film, television and radio. His theatre credits include Hope and Let The Right One In, both directed by John Tiffany, The Solid Life of Sugarwater for the Graeae Theatre Company, Bunny for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Stacy for the Trafalgar Studios, 2nd May 1997 and When You Cure Me for the Bush. His adaptations include The Physicists for the Donmar Warehouse and Stuart: A Life Backwards for Hightide. On film his credits include War Book, A Long Way Down and The Scouting Book for Boys. For television his credits include The Last Panthers, Don’t Take My Baby, This Is England, The Fades, Glue and Cast-Offs and the upcoming National Treasure. In 2012 he won BAFTAs for best series (The Fades) and best serial (This Is England 88).

John Tiffany directed Once for which he was the recipient of multiple awards both in the West End and on Broadway. As Associate Director of the Royal Court, his work includes The Twits, Hope and The Pass. He was the director of Let The Right One In for the National Theatre of Scotland, which transferred to the Royal Court, West End and St. Ann’s Warehouse. His other work for the National Theatre of Scotland includes Macbeth (also Broadway), Enquirer, The Missing, Peter Pan, The House of Bernarda Alba, Transform Caithness: Hunter, Be Near Me, Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us, The Bacchae, Black Watch, for which he won the Olivier and Critics’ Circle Best Director Awards, Elizabeth Gordon Quinn and Home: Glasgow. Other recent credits include The Glass Menagerie at A.R.T. and on Broadway and The Ambassador at BAM. Tiffany was Associate Director of the National Theatre of Scotland from 2005 to 2012, and was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University in the 2010-2011 academic year.

 

Hometown:

Perthshire, Scotland

Date of Birth:

July 31, 1965

Place of Birth:

Chipping Sodbury near Bristol, England

Education:

Exeter University

Website:

http://www.jkrowling.com

Editorial Reviews

6/2/2016
By now, you’ve heard the news: Harry Potter’s story is getting an eighth chapter, in the form of play and script book Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! This is what Potter fans have been waiting for since closing the book on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows seven years ago. Way back then, J.K. Rowling left the Weasley-Potters (Harry and Ginny) and the Granger-Weasleys (Ron and Hermione) in a very good place: dropping their kids off at the Hogwarts Express for their first year. The grownups were safe, the kids were Hogwarts-bound, and all was well. Until now, thank goodness. Read More

B&N Reads

What a remarkable thing! Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the bare-bones script of a play. And yet, it has the same addictive drive as Rowling's novels. Of course, this isn't Rowling's writing, but rather the playwright Jack Thorne elaborating on a story conceived by Rowling, Thorne and the director John Tiffany together. And yet, Harry Potter and Hermione and Ron and Ginny—in their actions and dialogue, their preoccupations and loyalties—remain themselves. By which, since Harry and the rest are fictional characters, I mean Thorne has by some sort of alchemy written a book that I would previously have assumed only J. K. Rowling could write. The humor is Rowling's, as is the tightrope-with-an-umbrella execution of a formidably complicated plot and Rowling's sturdy, pragmatic morality, where the high cost of doing the right thing is nevertheless worth paying. How can a collaboration feel so singularly tethered to Rowling's point of view? There's probably a spell for this you could learn at Hogwarts if Hogwarts really existed, but the ingredients must be rare and difficult to come by.

The New York Times Book Review - Kelly Link

08/08/2016
It's been nine years since readers left Harry, Ron, and Hermione on Platform 9 3/4, as the characters were ushering their own children onto the Hogwarts Express. That scene, which appeared in the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, opens this new stage play, now playing to sold-out audiences in London. The script, in book form, will completely undermine the show's hashtag campaign to #KeepTheSecrets, but for Potter fans who can't see the production, this is a welcome substitution. Reading this play--more than 300 pages of dialogue and a few scant instructions for the actors--is, of course, an entirely different experience. The fact that so many of the children are named for key figures from the novels (Albus, James, Lily) and that some of the cast's 42 characters occasionally transform into others demands careful attention to who's talking. Fortunately, most of the characters are familiar, and many of the plot elements turn on memorable events from the novels--the Triwizard Tournament from Goblet of Fire chief among them. A time-turner, last seen in Prisoner of Azkaban, plays a key (if hokey) role, used as a sort of resurrection stone to return favorite characters to life. Stage directions only hint at what an extraordinary challenge it must have been to produce the many special effects that are required--some enchanting, some terrifying--and the bare-bones nature of a script doesn't adequately convey what must be a devastating moment for many in the audience near the conclusion of Part Two. Ironically, after having all the secrets spoiled, what many readers will likely want most is to see the play. Ages 8-up. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts I and II

* “Series fans can breathe easy knowing this play has been respectfully and lovingly wrought. Tensions thrum, spells fly… but at center stage, as always in the Potterverse, is the overriding importance of love and friendship, especially in the face of danger.” -- Booklist, starred review

From the Publisher

10/01/2016
Playwright Thorne and director Tiffany (who previously collaborated on Hope and Let the Right One In) worked with J.K. Rowling to extend the "Harry Potter" universe with an eighth "installment" in the form of the script from the new West End production. The book starts where the last chapter of Deathly Hallows left off—19 years after the main events of the series—with Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione all saying goodbye to their children as they leave for Hogwarts. As Albus, Harry and Ginny's youngest son, attends Hogwarts, he is plagued by the Potter legacy—something he never wanted—and, as he's sorted into Slytherin, is terrible at Quidditch, and constantly compared to his famous father, he becomes reclusive and angsty. His sole friend is Scorpius Malfoy, the only son of Draco Malfoy—prompting further separation from his father. When Albus hatches a plot to go back in time to save the life of Cedric Diggory—what Albus views as the biggest mistake his father made—time becomes distorted and Harry is left to examine his own life, his relationship with his son, and how love can sometimes be much more complicated than it seems. This is an interesting extension of the "Harry Potter" universe, but readers should go into it knowing that it's its own beast. Rowling didn't write it (much to the fury and vitriol of many fans), and it is in script form, so it loses some of the magic that won over millions of readers back when it all began. However, many of the themes that made the original series great are still in abundance—love and friendship conquering all, facing your flaws and accepting them—so that it simultaneously still feels like a "Harry Potter" tale while remaining its own story. VERDICT It is unlikely that the script will create new Potter followers, owing to its format (reading a script vs. reading a novel is a whole other ballgame), but it's a well-crafted and enjoyable read.—Tyler Hixson, School Library Journal

School Library Journal

This book version of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child…turns out to be a compelling, stay-up-all-night read…the suspense here is electric and nonstop, and it has been cleverly constructed around developments recalling events in the original Potter novels…As a bonus, fans are also given a scattering of interesting new insights into Harry, Dumbledore and Voldemort…In this case, it is not giving away too much of the plot of this absorbing and ingenious play to simply recall Dumbledore's words in The Prisoner of Azkaban: "The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed." And time travel, like the art of fiction writing, affords the possibility of imagining ominous alternate futures, if not amazing and harrowing alternate worlds.

The New York Times - Michiko Kakutani

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