Changes

But equal to, if not above, the thoughts of the plot must be the considerations of the style. In a world where children's literature seems so ''old'' if it's just a straight narrative, here we have Harry's text conversations, email chats and forum threads, and nothing else, and while they do have the habit of jumping from one to the other mid-flow a little unrealistically, they form the entire storytelling in a brilliant way. Harry can receive advice – good and bad, get nowhere with unsent texts to his intended girlfriend, and can, of course, write cheeky letters to real people in the world in vain hope of a reply – here, Barack Obama, and the Cambridges. This fantasy side of things is still in the book, whereas other things that might have seemed a little too much, like his private schooling, are toned down. There's more of Harry being active (if slightly sedentary, in front of a console or PC game) and his interests this time are more attuned to him and kids like him, and less those of his parents. The real world is subtly included with references to the SW England floods of a year or two ago.

For a much more American approach to reading for this audience, yet with a similarly healthy manner of bending the narrative form, you could do worse than try [[The Tapper Twins Go to War (With Each Other) by Geoff Rodkey]].