Gee, from all of the anti-Potter posts on FR the past few weeks I would have thought that Rowlings herself was the personification of evil. Maybe those folks never read the books in the first place, or maybe they read with preconceived notions garnered from some wacko website, or maybe they just weren't capable of recognizing common literary metaphors in Western literature.
The Potter books aren't half bad. If you're looking for entertainment and aren't expecting Shakespeare or even Tolkien, you won't be disappointed.
I have a copy of The Annotated Alice which I'm getting ready to start reading and it looks to be quite interesting. It is touted as follows: "...the first and only edition of Lewis Carroll's two masterpieces that contains the full text, original Tenniel illustrations in correct position, and includes a full annotation by the celebrated scholar Martin Gardner."
I have always wanted to read this and never have done so. Now seems a good time.