A Hogwarts Library- The Tales of Beedle The Bard

The Hogwarts Library is a collection of 3 short books by J.K Rowling, each of which are an extension of the Magical world of Hogwarts, Magic and Muggles in which she created. The three books in this collection are The Tales of Beedle the Bard, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (very different from the screenplay) and Quidditch Through The Ages

Today I wanted to do a post dedicated to the book; The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Which is the first book I have picked up finally from this collection and read and this is infact a perfectly timed post considering that the new covers for this book are on sale!

The Second cover is the cover shown in The Deathly Hallows part 1 Movie. 

The Tales of Beedle The Bard are a collection of Short Stories,

The Wizard and the Hopping Pot

The Fountain of Fair Fortune

The Warlocks Hairy Heart

Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump

The Tale of the Three Brothers

In-between each short story there is also ‘Notes from Albus Dumbledore’ who with his wisdom explains the story or his understanding of the story to the reader. I really liked this element because it reminded me of Albus and Harry’s talks from the many books/movies and it left me feeling sort of nostalgic in a way as if I was going back to something I had read before or experienced before.

I went in to this book pretty much blind, I didn’t know what to expect as the only story I had heard from this collection was The Tale of the Three Brothers from the Deathly Hallows movie (I have yet to read the book yet… I know eek..).  I was really surprised though by how it was darker than I expected it to be, in the film Ron mentions how Mrs. Weasley would read the book to them as children so I had this idea of it being all  happily ever after stories. Instead they were definitely darker as they featured death and in one case murder… However I actually really liked that they were much darker than I expected because it reminded me of The Brother’s Grimm – Fairy tales and the original stories of the fairy tales we grew up with and how they are nothing like Disney’s happy versions. Because of the darker elements it made it seem more realistic for me, which probably sounds stupid in a sense because of course it is a fictional magical world but the extensive work J.K Rowling has put into this world and the stories is astounding because you feel like the stories you are reading are old and have been passed through generations of magical families and not just written.

The book is a short read of only 108 pages so it won’t take you long to read at all. The 108 pages includes a message at the back from the  Chief Executive for the Lumos charity. There is a message in the back of the book from him because the proceeds from buying the book all go to the charity Lumos which is just great of course. I’m not sure if this is something they did with just this particular copy or if it’s linked to all the copies so your own might be different.

In terms of my favourite story from this book it has to be The Tale of the Three Brothers, partially because it holds so much meaning to the story but also because it’s the one I seemed to click with the most and enjoyed the most. I love the different elements of it and how the three brothers were all different, there is a real moral to it which I’m sure you could actually find a few morals from of it.

Many have read this book following watching the movies or reading the books or even watching Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them as they think it will help with the Harry Potter hangover… I don’t think it works with curing the hangover because with me it made me finally pick up Half Blood Prince something I had still yet to do. It’s a great little read for when you haven’t got the time to pick up one of the books from the series like you want to but just know you will definitely go to them again once you pop this one down 🙂

Overall if I had to give this a rating then  I do want to go 5 stars because I love everything Harry Potter unconditionally as you can probably tell but I think this one was more of a 4/4.5 for me. I didn’t connect with the other short stories that well as compared to The Tale of the Three Brothers, the others lacked something for me to really get into them or think wow this is great whereas the Three Brothers caught my attention straight away. However that could just be my issue because I recognised it from the movie. Who knows another read through and I might end up with another favourite tale!

Finally a note on the new covers which were released in January

The New cover for The Tales of Beedle the Bard looks really good. Whilst I would love a copy like the movie I think this one might really appeal to younger audiences as well. I wanted to mention this on here because they are currently on sale from £5.99 on Book Depository to £2.99 and I know I would appreciate knowing when a sale is on especially if it contains Harry Potter…
We all love book deals and sales don’t we!

The Book Depository (Click Link)
In-case you aren’t familiar with this site then I use it regularly and they also offer FREE WORLDWIDE DELIVERY. 

Also for anybody else who is as Harry Potter mad like me then be sure to check out the bloomsbury page www.harrypotter.bloomsbury.com especially the Harry potter 20 page which tells you all about Harry Potters 20th Anniversary coming in June and how their doing special book editions etc!

DON’T LET THE MUGGLES GET YOU DOWN

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Let me know in the comments if you’ve read this book and your thoughts on it. Also if your reading any other Harry Potter book then be sure to let me know what your reading too Or even any other book of course:)