Well, guess what? Today I am an avid fan and I have to eat my words written in an earlier review of another children's series, The Goodfellow Chronicles. I am hooked on Harry Potter all because someone mentioned in a seminar on Goethe's Faust that the books had a Faustian content. I decided to investigate, and realized that there was more to these books than meets the eye. I doubt that children, and even their parents, will realize that J. K. Rowling used her classical background to create the first book and from there continued on. Although I discovered, to my pleasure, that many children began to dig into the meaning of names, words, and spells and came up, surprisingly, with many correct answers, though not for everything.

Take the title of the first book, The Philosopher's Stone. Where does that come from? Why, among the magicians from ancient times does she mention an Agrippa? A bell began to ring in my brain. Where had I come across this phrase and the name before? Of course, there was the Roman general, for whom the city Agrippina was named (German: Köln, English: Cologne — from the Latin Colonia Agrippina — a city on the Rhine in Germany whose citizens were called Agrippinenses during Roman times). But the general had no connection to the occult. Then I recalled that I had reviewed a book called The Case against Johann Reuchlin, a book that looks at the early 16^th century imperial judge for the Swabian Confederation, who opposed the burning of Jewish books within the lands governed by Emperor Maximilian I. The confiscation of the books had begun on the behest of a man, who had converted to Christianity from Judaism. Somewhere along the line, as I delved into Reuchlin's life, I came across one Agrippa von Nettesheim, who had been born in Cologne and in his adult life became known as theologian, a medical doctor, a philosopher, a soldier, a knight and someone who studied the occult and was drawn through Reuchlin into studying the Cabala. He preferred to speak Latin and took on the name Agrippa to indicate his origins. It is this Agrippa who called for a return to the Scriptures, the philosopher's stone (lydius lapis) of Christian teaching.

Rowling is not who and what we originally heard her described as when the Philosopher's Stone first came to our attention. Her story ran something like this: a single mom living on welfare, writing on her kitchen table. Her publicity people failed to tell us that she studied French and Classics at Exeter University, that she worked for Amnesty International, and that she taught English in Portugal, among other things. She may have been on welfare, but she certainly did and does not fit the image that 'welfare' implies. Perhaps the folks at Bloomsbury, her first publishers, felt that revealing too much about her education would make children turn away from her. Well, by now she no longer hides her background. She does not need to because by now she is one of the richest women in Britain.

Why do I like her books? While the author created characters who live lives filled with magic, they are flesh-and-blood humans doing things that we know cannot really be done, that they are surrounded by creatures which do not really exist. Yet, in her stories the events ring true; these stories also let our imagination roam. Harry Potter is an ordinary boy, who just happens to have powers ordinary people don't. The conflict between good and evil is carried out between humans, even if they are unusual humans. Those, who are bad, are so because of all the human reasons we can understand: the lust for power, greed, desire for revenge. Those, who are good, are that way also for reasons we can comprehend: they have an inborn kindness, a sense for fair play, they are capable of great love and great sacrifice.

Besides, how can I not love Harry Potter, whose amazing pet owl is called Hedwig. It is one of three names I was blessed with by my parents. Rowling probably took the name from St. Hedwig, made a saint in 1267. She was known for her caring nature and self-sacrifice, although she could be a formidable lady. When her husband (Duke Henry I of Silesia) was abducted by one Duke Conrad of Mazovia, she arrived on the scene, causing Mazovia to release Henry at once.

I have read four books in the series: The aforementioned Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (which for some reason has been renamed in the USA as The Sorcerer's Stone, thereby robbing it of its connection to Agrippa); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I looked forward with considerable expectations to reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when I discovered, to my horror, that the publisher had sent me two copies of Prisoner of Azkaban although the packing slip said otherwise. I now have to wait for this book to see if it matches the "don't-put-me-down" quality of the previous books, as well as the inventiveness and the conscious or subconscious allusions to things, persons and events from the past. Rowling knows how to involve her readers in the plot, in searching for what she says in the subtext of her story.

I won't go into the story of Harry Potter other than that the first four books cover his first four years at a school called Hogwarts. There, young wizards are educated. Of course, he has great adventures and adversities to overcome, all of which he manages with considerable skill — and some luck.

The other series of children's books called The Goodfellow Chronicles, mentioned above, are written by J. C. Mills. They, too, are all about the fight between good and evil. Like the Harry Potter stories, these are filled with human characters, who are either very deceitful and menacing, or good, kind and concerned about the well-being of others. The difference is that the good ones are guided by some tiny creatures called the Sage, while the bad ones are influenced by their opposite, the Fen. There, too, is a Faustian undertone to the books.

I loved the first one in the series, called The Sacred Seal, even if I complained about the overuse of the horrible word, 'thankfully' and a few other 'fullies'. Its story showed great promise and a charm that kept me, the reader, interested to the very last page. In fact, I so wanted to know the outcome, I read the book in one whole sitting.

Among other things in this book, there seemed to be a promise for future volumes that would reveal how the Sage influenced Sir Winston Churchill and other historic characters during WWII. But, sadly, in the second book, called The Messengers, this part of history is barely touched on. Instead Mills takes us into the realm of the 'crop circles' in Britain and imparts them with magical meanings, even bringing in an association with Mars and a supposed Martian past before it became the cold, dry and desolate planet it is now.

True, I cannot say that I did not enjoy reading The Messengers, but I enjoyed it less than I should have been able to had it fulfilled it promise. The same applies to the third, The Book of The Sage.

It became clear as I read along, that young children may become lost when dealing with the somewhat complicated plots. It seems to me that unlike Rowling's books, the last two books of The Goodfellow Chronicles will not inspire youngsters to look up possible historic facts. They are just not written that way. Only in the first book in the series, in which the Sage employ gadgets first imagined and designed by Leonardo da Vinci, might children's minds become engaged to go beyond the story. But there is no equivalent in the other two volumes. Another problem is that the three books are not consistent in their approach. Worse, the really malevolent characters from the first book soon disappear in the following books. It almost seems as if Mills ran out of steam, so to speak.

To me, The Goodfellow Chronicles are more suited to be read aloud by an adult to younger children. I say this because the human heroes in this series grow very old in the end, and fade away, a fact that may be more difficult for children to cope with without help from adults.