The third book in the Harry Potter saga, following Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has been released in audio adaptations: the British version is read by Stephen Fry, and the American recording is told by Jim Dale. A movie based on the first Harry Potter book was released in 2001. Many Harry Potter resources recommend a canon of related books written by C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Roald Dahl, Philip Pullman, Diana Wynne Jones, Patricia C. Wrede, Jane Yolen, Diane Duane, and L. Frank Baum (The Tin Woodman of Oz [1918] features large beasts called “Hip-po-gy-rafs”). Numerous books with similar themes, characters, and plots as the Harry Potter novels are often overlooked.
Alexandre Dumas’ The Man in the Iron Mask (1846) depicts the plight of a falsely accused man imprisoned for a crime committed by another person. Louis Sachar’s Holes (1999) is set at an isolated juvenile detention camp where the main character, Stanley Yelnats, unravels a family secret. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) have twisting plots that revolve around mistaken identities of criminals, runaways, and fugitives from justice. Similarly, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island (1883) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) have plots based on people’s perceptions of others and then discovering that appearances are deceiving. Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus books, published from the 1880s through the early 1900s, also portray characters who delight in deceiving others about their true identities and purposes and who participate in plots that usually result in justice being secured for victims.
Carol Kendall’s The Gammage Cup (1959) features a magical protagonist named Muggles who seeks vengeance for her wronged people, the Minnipins. The Magician’s House Quartet, written by William Corlett in the 1990s (The Steps Up the Chimney, The Door in the Tree, The Tunnel Behind the Waterfall, and The Bridge in the Clouds) describes the main characters’ adventures in The Welsh Golden House where they can communicate with animals and view and see their surroundings through animals’ senses. Welwyn Wilton Katz’ The Third Magic chronicles the adventures of Morgan Lefevre who is swept to another time and place when she visits King Arthur’s birthplace because she is falsely identified as her ancestress and must conquer evil forces to save Earth and herself. Joan Hiatt Harlow’s Star in the Storm tells about a brave Newfoundland dog named Sirius who is reminiscent of Sirius Black.
Jay Bennett’s mystery thrillers have characters fleeing stalkers, suffering self-doubt, and questioning other’s identities much like Harry does in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Characters present false facades in young adult literature written by Robert Cormier and Michael Cadnum. John Rowe Townsend’s The Intruder (1970) depicts how a stranger assuming familiarity with the shopkeeper that he works for is upsetting to teenager Arnold Haithwaite. In Robb White’s Deathwatch (1972), the protagonist, Ben, witnesses a murder and is stalked as he escapes through the wilderness. He is incredulous when no one believes him when he tries to press charges against the murderer. Lois Duncan’s Don’t Look Behind You (1989) describes how April’s life and identity changes when her family are hidden in the federal witness protection program and stalked by a hired killer. Joan Lowery Nixon presents stories similar to Harry’s plight in The Stalker (1985), in which seventeen-year-old Jennifer attempts to prove her best friend is innocent of murder by proving who the murderer is, and The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore (1979), in which the title character is kidnapped but everyone thinks she staged the crime to receive ransom money from her rich grandmother. Eve Bunting’s Someone is Hiding on Alcatraz Island (1984) is a thriller set on the infamous prison site in which Danny is tormented by gang members in a cell block. Jane Yolen and Martin H. Greenberg, editors of Werewolves: A Collection of Original Stories (1988), present diverse literary interpretations of shapeshifting.
Popular adult fiction that is similar to the plot and themes in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban includes the suspense novels such as Devices and Desires (1990) written by P.D. James, which feature protagonist Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard, and Elizabeth George’s In the Presence of the Enemy (1996). Authors who have written novels about fugitives from justice include James Lee Burke, Patricia Cornwell, Thomas Harris, William Hoffman, John Gilstrap, Robert R. McCammon, and Joseph Wambaugh.
Nonfiction works which can be consulted to supplement reading of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban include Douglas G. Browne, The Rise of Scotland Yard: A History of the Metropolitan Police (1973); Tom Tullett, Strictly Murder: Famous Cases of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad (1980); and Jonathan Goodman and Bill Waddell, The Black Museum: Scotland Yard’s Chamber of Crime (1987). John Briggs, et al, Crime and Punishment in England: An Introductory History (1996) and Robert Chesshyre, The Force: Inside the Police (1989) provide factual information about the English criminal justice system. Roy D. King and Kathleen McDermott, The State of Our Prisons (1995) is part of the Clarendon Studies in Criminology Series published by Oxford University Press which examines various aspects of criminal justice in Great Britain.
The short chapter book, Lori Haskins, Breakout!: Escape from Alcatraz (1996) introduces young readers to the infamous American prison on an island (like Azkaban) near San Francisco, and Thomas E. Gaddis, Birdman of Alcatraz: The Story of Robert Stroud (1955) and Unknown Men of Alcatraz (1977) provide more details about specific inmates. True stories and legends about prisoners and escapees can be found in Geoffrey Abbott, Great Escapes from the Tower of London (1982) and Roger Howard’s Great Escapes and Rescues: An Encyclopedia (1999). Regrading shapeshifting like the Animagi in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Daniel Cohen’s Werewolves (1996) is written for young readers and scholarly studies such as Charlotte F. Otten, editor, A Lycanthropy Reader: Werewolves in Western Culture (1986) and Brad Steiger’s The Werewolf Book: The Encyclopedia of Shape-shifting Beings (1999) discuss folktales and literary and historical documents about humans physically changing form into animals
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