Hogwarts as Never-Never Land: Stephen King on The Goblet of Fire | Literary Hub

"I read the first novel in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in April 1999 and was only moderately impressed. But in April 1999 I was pretty much all right. Two months later I was involved in a serious road accident that necessitated a long and painful period of recuperation. During the early part of this period I read Potters 2 and 3 (Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban) and found myself a lot more than moderately wowed. In the miserably hot summer of '99, the Harry Potters (and the superb detective novels of Dennis Lehane) became a kind of lifeline for me. During July and August I found myself getting through my unpleasant days by aiming my expectations at evening, when I would drag my hardware-encumbered leg into the kitchen, eat fresh fruit and ice cream and read about Harry Potter's adventures at Hogwarts, a school for young wizards (motto: ‘Never tickle a sleeping dragon').