Rowling does an incredible job at mashing up numerous genres into one book series.  They range from romanticism to tragedy to fantasy to adventure and they are all evident early on in the story line.  I want to talk specifically about the genres tragedy and adventure in the first and second books.  I have read the books before but I am drawn in again and again to everything that goes on in Harry Potter’s life.  Tragedy is noted right away as we find out Harry’s parents were killed when he was a baby and he was sent to live with the Dursleys. In one scene when Harry is looking into the mirror of erised, there is a quote that shows the sadness Harry feels, “They just looked at him, smiling. And slowly, Harry looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry's knobbly knees -- Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life.  The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside of him, half joy, half terrible sadness.” This automatically makes me feel sorry for Harry and interested to see how he turns out as a result of his unfortunate situation.  Anything negative in a story makes it more believable and realistic in my opinion, because it’s a fiction story.  You can control everything that happens and we like to think if we could control our own lives we would make nothing bad ever happen.  So even if you weren’t placed on your grumpy aunt’s doorstep as a baby you can still relate to Harry with your own life.  Another rather obvious genre in this book series is adventure.  Harry and his friends are sent through quite an adventure over the duration of each book and usually with a few smaller adventures along the way.  This keeps me interested throughout the entire book as to what’s going to happen next.  This also works well with tragedies because it shows what Harry does to help people and solve mysteries despite his past.  This is one aspect that appeals to me most about these books is that so much can tie into these stories and that they are so relatable.  

-Maria Lowe