By: Alaina Gizzo
Posted In: Entertainment
Photo credit: Amazon.com
The cover of “The Tales of Beedle the Bard”
J.K. Rowling takes the fairy tale element of magic and kicks it up a notch in “The Tales of Beedle the Bard.” As translated by Potter fans’ beloved Hermione Granger, the tales were originally written in the fictional language of ancient Runes, which is perhaps equivalent to our translations of tales in ancient Greek. Rowling includes an extra treat for readers in the form of criticism and commentary from Albus Dumbledore after each tale, giving the book an overall sense of substance. In some instances, he discusses alternate versions of the tale, while for others he attempts to trace possible historical backgrounds in order to create a shade of reality in these tales for the members of the wizarding world. The author also includes footnotes for certain terms mentioned in Dumbledore’s commentary, either because the term is new to readers or to remind readers who may have forgotten some of the complicated terminology of Harry Potter’s world.
Rowling creates a great sense of wizarding history and anthropology through Dumbledore’s commentaries. In this work, she further sculpts a deep sense of the magical world so complicated that it all simply must be real. Rowling makes comparisons of these tales to Muggle (non-magic) fairy tales in her introduction. She notes that although these characters are surrounded by magic, it both causes the main conflict and resolves it at the same time. Due to the more magical nature of the tales, these characters also take a more active role in either attaining their fortunes or solving problems, while most Muggle storybook princesses usually wait for assistance. Rowling mentions in the introduction that magic makes problem-solving no easier in these stories saying, “In ‘The Tales of Beedle the Bard’.we meet heroes and heroines who can perform magic themselves, and yet find it just as hard to solve their problems as we do.” The book is a fast read (a little over a hundred pages), and a refreshing deviance from the generally encyclopedia-thick books featured in the series. Rowling’s usual sense of suspense infused by a page-turning need-to-know addiction is watered down by the very nature of this work. It contains five tales, including “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” which is a story that readers may recall from Rowling’s reference to it in “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” These tales put a further context on what Harry Potter fans already know and love about the wizarding world, making for a guilty pleasure worthy of readers from every age group. Besides providing her readers with another decadent serving of Rowling-style magic, the author is also providing the Children’s High Level Group (a charity that she co-founded in 2005 with Baroness Nicolson of Winterbourne) with Scholastic’s net proceeds from the sales of these books. Overall, the book is great as a light read and a must for hardcore Potter fans. It’s appropriate for all ages and charitable, where can you go wrong?
