Harry Potter certainly is magic all by itself. Sitting down and reading a book is becoming a lost art thanks to television and movies, but Harry Potter is still able to get people to do it. There is something about Harry, Ron, and Hermione that drives people to sit down and explore their own imagination again. But in this day and age, there is so much to do all the time. Sometimes it’s too hard to just sit down and read a book. There’s food to cook, homework to do, work to do, and friendships that need to be nurtured. And for me, after all of that, I’m usually too worn out to keep reading, especially when I’ve already done so much of it with my homework.
That’s where audiobooks come in. Audiobooks mean that you can do the chores around your house or drive to work and read at the same time. And the Harry Potter audiobooks are something in and of themselves.
Obviously, if you’re not a fan of Harry Potter this might not be the best thing you could spend your time on. But even so, the audiobooks are like watching a movie. It might be a book, and you might just be listening to it, but the way the characters are lifted from the page is like hearing the book come to life. It could make anyone fall in love with the series. Jim Dale, who voices the American audiobook set, is a trained actor, but that isn’t the only thing that is helping him here. He voices every character, but you couldn’t tell. Each character has a unique voice that adds to the audiobook. If you’ve ever heard an audiobook, you know that sometimes you’ll start one and wonder if you’ll ever be able to get through it because the person reading it is so bad. Sometimes they’re bad actors, but most of the time they’re just annoying. Jim Dale is the opposite. He’s got a soothing voice that could by like clay, and be molded into whatever it needs to sound like.
This is how the audiobooks are more than just a new medium for reading, especially with Harry Potter. When you read, everything is from your own head, and it’s just different. Reading is not the easiest thing in the world, so sometimes details can be lost in your head. Jim Dale’s magic for acting and voices meant that when I was younger and trying so hard to read as much as I could and failing, I had something I could fall back on and enjoy more than anything else. The voices are so different but still so real that they create a story like a movie, and the characters feel like real people.
I would not consider myself to be an audiobook person. I have trouble listening well, and often when I listen to an audiobook I have to keep going back a little because I wasn’t paying attention. But Harry Potter audiobooks draw you in and keep you hooked, allowing you to do anything you want but still adventure into Hogwarts.
