Politics of Harry Potter middle class, especially whenever Harry confronts his ludicrously dysfunctional and downright abusive adopted family, the Dursleys." The critic Anthony Holden wrote in "The Observer" on his experience of judging "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was very negative—"the Potter saga was essentially patronising, very conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain." A review in "The Guardian" echoed this interpretation and stated that "despite all of the books' gestures to multiculturalism and gender equality, Harry Potter is a conservative; a paternalistic, One-Nation Tory, perhaps, but a Tory
The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter approval from Rowling, and has since received positive reviews from critics. An updated version of "The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter" was published in 2004 by Berkley Books. "The Magical Worlds of Harry Potter" explores the references to history, legends, and literature in J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" novels. David Colbert, the author of the book, told the "St. Louis Post-Dispatch" that the "Harry Potter" novels "are [...] literary treasure hunts for [Rowling's] readers. What seem like funny-sounding names and places and excursions into fantasy all have a basis in either history, myth or legend." He added, however, that he thinks