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Well worth the wait. The first few books were released each year, but the latest have taken longer to get published. With good reason as they are lengthier books, and the illustrator also took longer to complete due to mental health illness. Sadly, this will be the last Harry Potter book Jim Kay illustrates. He says: "I have been struggling with mental health illness for some time, and it would be wrong to try and continue when I can no longer give the fans and the series the full commitment and energy it deserves."

So many of the reviews here complain about having fewer illustrated pages. This isn't a children's picture book to expect every single page to have illustrations. I praise each painting that is included, even if it might feel like fewer due to the size of this book. They are skillful paintings lovingly created by an expert in his craft. Even if hypothetically there were no paintings at all, the quality of the pages and overall book are well worth the price of any hardback.

The Order of the Phoenix has much more detail, and the use of color has been more methodically planned. While there are some bright pictures, there isn't often something happy occurring. Bright sunsets set almost an even broodier tone with the characters being deep in contemplation in contrast to the bright scene. Masterfully done evoking so much feeling. I feel Jim Kay's mental health may have played a part in the feeling the paintings bring up. You can feel the anguish and sorrow in many of these. The contributing illustrator, Neil Packer, did about a quarter of the illustrations, which are very cool. Neil's are more of a layout than painting a scene, but extremely detailed.

The pages themselves (even those without illustrations) take on the color tone of what the chapter is about. For example, the pages for chapters taking place in a forest are green, those with Umbridge are often pink, those with Death Eaters transition from black, dark green, purple and red. Excellent use of color throughout to set the mood.

And what a mood and tone the story has! The heroes preparing themselves for what they know will come, but no one coming out of it unscathed. Good can win, but it comes at a cost.

There are new characters who make things far more difficult for our young heroes than one would imagine. I always felt Umbridge was such a villain and couldn't place why her character irked me more than some of the other more murderous villains. But I think it's because she is someone we can identify in our lives who we might have met. The teacher who treated us unfairly for no reason, or the unreasonable person who criticizes every good thing we think we've accomplished. While characters like Voldemort and Lestrange are the evil we wish never to have to confront, Umbridge is the evil we face in real life.

I would definitely not recommend this for children. Not just because of the length and thematic material, but some illustrations are purposely frightful. Which I imagine we can continue to expect as the stories get darker. Not a bad thing, but just know the stories progressively get scarier and despondent.

Overall, a fantastic buy that I'm happy to have with the other Illustrated versions. I am sad Jim Kay will no longer be illustrating the remaining two books, but that makes this installment all the more special. Thank you, Jim Kay, for sharing these beautiful treasures with us and our hearts.

Beware Amazon packing isn't always the best. They'll put it in a box often with no padding. My copy of the book came in excellent condition, but the box it arrived in was in bad shape.

Brand	N/A
Rating	4.9 (8316 ratings)
Price	$28.73
Category	Action & Adventure

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: The Illustrated Edition (Harry Potter, Book 5)