Rapid Review: The Illustrated Harry Potter Editions 1-3 by Jim Kay

Rapid Review: The Illustrated Editions of Harry Potter

I decided to start my new year off the right way: by rereading one of my favourite series of all time--Harry Potter. However this reading experience was significantly enhanced by the fact that I read the new illustrated editions of the first three books in the series illustrated by Jim Kay.

I absolutely love these editions of the Harry Potter books, I thought the illustrations were beautiful and really brought to life the magic of the wizarding world. I really liked how the illustrations diverged from the movie's interpretations of the characters and Hogwarts itself. As much as I love the movie, it was really refreshing to revisit these books from another person's perspective based on an imagination different to your own. I loved the bold colours and the detail was so intricate and truly stunning to admire. Not only in the main illustrations, but also in the backgrounds of the non-illustrated pages.

What I also loved was the diagrams of the magical creatures that feature throughout the books such as the troll, the dragons and the basilisk. I thought this was a really nice way of adding to the original story as we learn more about the creatures than we do in the original books. these were done in the style of pages from the textbooks features in the story which I thought was a really nice touch.

The books themselves are really satisfyingly big and weighty which made me feel like I was reading an ancient spellbook every time I picked it up! I forgot how wonderful it is to read an illustrated book and it made me wish that all adult books were illustrated as well as children's books! I'd love to see more illustrated editions like these for other series as it's such a nice way to revisit your favourite stories in a different way.



I believe that Jim Kay is currently completing the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire which is due to be released at some point in 2019 but is yet to be confirmed. Although this book is likely to be even bigger as the novel itself is about twice as long each of the first 3 books! But I can't wait to get my hands on the next one as soon as possible as I'm sure it will be equally as magical as the other editions. But I imagine there will be much of a longer wait on the rest of the books in the series so we shall all have to very patient!

In the meantime I hope to read A History of Magic illustrated by Jim Kay in partnership with the British Library as it looks stunning and will hopefully fill the absence of the other editions of the series! I am also keen to get my hands on the illustrated edition of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them illustrated by Olivia Lomenech Gill which looks equally as beautiful.

Overall I highly recommend these editions of the Harry Potter series to any Harry Potter fan but also to anyone looking to introduce the series to children as I think this would be a great place to start for children interested in the series but perhaps intimidated by the novels as these illustrated editions prove to be a really magical reading experience.