Book No. 5 is full of drama.
"The man who killed [Harry's] parents is back and amassing his troops. Hogwarts has been invaded by the poisonous bureaucrat Dolores Umbridge (picture a toad in a fluffy pink cardigan). And everyone thinks [Harry is] either nuts or a pathological liar, thanks to a smear campaign by the Daily Prophet. Oh, and his best friend made prefect and he didn't," summarizes Monitor critic Yvonne Zipp in her 2003 review of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix."
"Harry may be grousing," Zipp notes, "but there's plenty for fans to cheer. Book 5 isn't spattered with the gore that marred Book 4." The "emotional layering," she wrote, "isn't as rich as in Book 3" (her admitted favorite of the series).
She was also conscious of a bit of "flatness" at the ending, although, she added, that "may also stem from the knowledge that once you hit the last page, there's going to be a long wait until Book 6."
The 2007 film version of "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" took the series' shortest book and turned it into the longest movie. Several critics, including Colin Bertram of the New York Daily News, called it the best of the "Harry Potter" movies yet.
