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One for the Books by Mary Louise Ruehr

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"Wow!" (-- me, at page 12)

As you, my loyal readers, could have predicted, once I got my hands on "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," I was unable to do anything else until I finished J.K. Rowling's seventh and final book in the saga of the young wizard of Hogwarts. I read and I read and I read, and as the 759 pages quickly went by, that first "Wow!" was followed by quite a few more.

Let's see. How do I tell you about the book without giving anything away? OK. It's dark and scary and starts where the last book left off. How's that? More? It will pick you up out of your seat and throw you around and not let you go until it's finished. More? There are surprises and explanations and back stories, many of the plot points from the previous books are brought back, and the character development that's been building throughout the last six books is wrapped up for characters both good and bad. And people die -- some I expected, and some I didn't.

It's about love, it's about loss, about truth and lies and bravery and cowardice and justice and cheating and loyalty and betrayal. Oh, and beauty and ugliness and romance and violence. That about covers it.

And as always, there's Rowling's famous comic relief, including her whimsical names, such as Pius Thicknesse, Rufus Scrimgeour and Mundungus Fletcher. There are even interesting allusions to political power and Nazi-type racism. The classic themes of good vs. evil, coming of age, fighting for freedom, going on a quest, friendship and the power of redemption come together in the complex plot that is all tied up in a nice, complete bow at the end. (Although I still have a few questions.)

This is not a book for young children, and this is not the one to start with. Be sure you've read all the previous Harry Potter books first. (And why would you want to skip any of them, anyway?) This book provides the second half of the equation that the author's been formulating in the first six.

When I finally got my hands on "HP7," I was, of course, excited -- just as always. But I knew that this would be the last time I would sit in my chair holding a new Harry Potter novel. So I savored it as much as I could. I was at turns happy, disappointed, elated, discouraged, awestruck, sad and delighted. And as the ending approached, the tears started to come -- pages before the end, when I could see it coming -- until I was just plain weeping. I didn't want it to end. I couldn't put it down or stop reading, but I didn't want it to end. It wasn't just the sad/happy conclusion; it was the fact that it was the end of an era: the breakup of The Beatles, the last episode of "M*A*S*H," the death of Princess Diana. I think the whole world felt it at once -- that incredible buildup of elated expectation, and that universal sigh of fulfillment and emptiness at the same time when we all finished the book.

I am genuinely amazed at Rowling herself. I've compared her to Roald Dahl, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll and J.M. Barrie -- and her name truly does belong among theirs. Her writing is so easy to read, and it's so visual that I can see it all in my mind; for me, the images are even more memorable from the books than from the movies. My vision of the death of a main character in the sixth book is still completely clear in my head, as if I were looking at it on a movie screen.

Rowling said the idea for Harry and Hogwarts came to her on a train ride, including how it would end. And she has very expertly and lovingly woven all this information, all these details, this entire wizarding world, into these seven beautiful volumes that tell one complete, seamless story. It is truly a feat of literary engineering.

It was a marvelous ride -- simply wonderful -- and as soon as I can, I'm going to start over on my favorite of the series, book one, in which she first brings to life the wonderful, colorful, magical world of wizards and we first climb on board the Hogwarts Express. May we all ride that train together, clutching our owl cages and munching on Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, forever.

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If you can't get your fill of enchanted stories, pick up "The Marvelous Effect," Book One of "Marvelous World" by Troy CLE. This one is getting a lot of media buzz as "the black Harry Potter" because of his magical adventures, but in a modern, urban setting. It's about seventh-grade African American best friends in East Orange, N.J., who find their world has been entered by something from another dimension. It is up to "the Supposedly Soon to be Phenomenal Young Mr. Louis Proof" to do something about it.

The story is a mixture of science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, adventure and pop culture -- movies, video games, hip-hop, NASCAR, anime -- plus a bit of Willie Wonka, a dash of Alice in Wonderland and a whole lot of imagination.

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If you need even more magical books to read, try "Eragon" by Christopher Paolini, "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke, or "The Lightning Thief" by Rick Riordan. In fact, "The Lightning Thief" was one of the recent picks of Al Roker's Book Club for Kids. Roker's latest pick is "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis, winner of the 2000 Newbery Medal. His other picks include "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" by Brian Selznick and "Swordbird" by Nancy Yi Fan.

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What's Happening: Exciting news for swashbuckling fans! In a month or so, Pegasus Books will publish in English a recently discovered novel by Alexandre Dumas, author of classic novels such as "The Three Musketeers." "The Last Cavalier" was published in France in 2005, after it was found in the National Library in Paris. Pegasus publisher Claiborne Hancock said "The Last Cavalier" is in the vein of classic Dumas -- a revenge story set during the Napoleonic era.

Send book news to Books@recordpub.com.