#26 in Drama & theatre
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
- 350
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
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Editor’s note The Cursed Child is a play, not a novel: the script of the two-part stage production written by Jack Thorne from a story he developed with J. K. Rowling and the director John Tiffany, which opened in London in July 2016 and was published as a book the next day. It starts where the epilogue of the seventh book left off, nineteen years on, with Harry’s second son Albus starting at Hogwarts, sorted into Slytherin and friends with Scorpius Malfoy, and the plot runs on a stolen Time-Turner and the alternative presents it creates. Readers expecting an eighth novel are the ones who dislike it; on stage, with its illusions, it has won more awards than any play of its decade. Read it as a script, or better, see it.
About the book
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a play written by Jack Thorne from an original story by Thorne, J. K. Rowling, and John Tiffany. The plot occurs nineteen years after the events of Rowling's novel Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It follows Albus Severus Potter, the second son of Harry Potter, now the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic. When Albus arrives at Hogwarts to get sorted into Gryffindor, he gets officially sorted into Slytherin and feels unable to live up to his father's legacy, making him resentful of his father.
Reading order · Harry Potter
Full order & progress →- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneStart here
8.68.6 / 10 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
8.48.4 / 10 - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
8.88.8 / 10 - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
8.88.8 / 10 - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
8.68.6 / 10 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
8.88.8 / 10 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
8.88.8 / 10 - Harry Potter prequelHarry Potter prequel–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 6.1 across 2,076 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 93% of the weight and the score stays at 6.3 — the Drama & theatre average of 7.6 barely moves it.
The rating sources disagree by more than a point, so the score leans more on the category average than usual.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.9 | 117 | 6% |
| Hardcover | 6.0 | 2K | 94% |
Frequently asked
What age is Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for?
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child sits on the Middle grade shelf in the sources we use, which by convention means roughly ages 8–12. This is a guide from the book’s category, not a publisher’s age rating. It has 350 pages — shorter than 89% of the ranked books in Drama & theatre.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Drama & theatre — with scores between 7.1 and 7.4, closest to this book.
