Within a week of the recent release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, millions of children and adults around the world had read it. Now comes the long wait for the final tome in this cleverly designed series by the prolific J.K. Rowling. Nil desperandum. The fantasy novel for children – and especially crossover books which, like the Harry Potter series, appeal to both adults and children – has a long tradition, and there are a myriad other fantastic books to turn to, many of which have been written by Australian authors.

If nothing else, the series has been an outstanding marketing phenomenon that has attracted millions of children and adults to fantasy writing. There is no doubt that Rowling has a masterly command of dialogue and of the intricacies of plotting. She has created a likeable and resilient main character, and a convincing and enticing secondary world. However, her writing occasionally lapses into the prosaic, some of her ideas are clearly derivative and the later books in particular would have benefited from a substantive edit. Despite this, the series – in particular, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (1997) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (1999) – may well become classics, joining other great European fantasies for children.