I feel like I’m the last person in the book blogosphere to have read this. I got it for Christmas, and for some reason it’s taken me 3 months to start it. (Such a bad HP fan am I!)

The Tales of Beedle the Bard is the book that Dumbledore leaves for Hermione in Deathly Hallows. It is a book that contains five fairy tales that wizarding children have grown up (not necessarily in the form they were originally, but at least an adaptation of). It includes ‘The Wizard and the Hopping Pot,’ ‘The Fountain of Fair Fortune,’ ‘The Warlock’s Hairy Heart,’ ‘Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump’ and ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers.’ The last one being the fairy tale that held such significance in Deathly Hallows.

I loved this book – read it in only a couple of hours, and couldn’t put it down. In fact, I may have even enjoyed this more than some of the books in the actual series. (Specifically Goblet of Fire, which was always my least favourite.) I love the way that Rowling was able to catch the narration and feeling of other fairy tales that we know. The tales in here would fit in with other collections of fairy tales.

Dumbledore was never one of my favourite characters in the HP series. Yes, I sobbed when reading HBP. I expect to be sobbing through the movie. But more for Harry’s loss than the fact that Dumbledore died. So, I didn’t really expect to find the notes from Dumbledore to be as enjoyable as they were – happy surprise! They were actually VERY funny. Take this, for example, when talking about a rewriting of the first tale in the book:

Mrs Bloxam’s tale has met the same response from generations of wizarding children: uncontrollable retching, followed by an immediate demand to have the book taken from them and mashed into a pulp.

In fact, Dumbledore’s notes were just as (if not more) enjoyable than the tales themselves. It gives a history to them all and explores how different wizarding generations responded to the tales. His notes even go into comparison of the original tales of Beedle the Bard to more well-known versions. Sort of like how we would compare a fairy tale from the Brothers Grimm to the Disney adaptation.

This book has made me realize exactly how much I have missed the anticipation of a new HP book… Heck, I’d be happy just to feel that joint excitement from all fans for a new book in any series again to the extent that I felt it for the HP books. (Seeing as I skipped out on the whole excitement for the last of the Twilight books, that event totally doesn’t count.)

Bottom Line A must-have for Harry Potter fans. Especially for those who already own Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages and want to finish off their collection.