Jan 4, 2009
The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Author: J.K. Rowling
Pages: 107
Year Published: 2008
The Tales of Beedle the Bard has an unlikely history. Originally created as a plot device for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling sat down and penned the five stories within, literally. She produced seven handwritten, extremely rare books which are all bound in Morrocan leather, semiprecious stones and silver clasps and decorations. They were apparently gifts for the six people most influential in making Harry Potter happen. The seventh, as you probably know, was auctioned for charity and bought by Amazon.com for over one million dollars. As it turned out, a version available to the public wasn’t originally envisioned. However, demand overcame the initial reluctance and voila! The Tales of Beedle the Bard are in print for everyone.
The tales themselves are basically five Aesop fables whose morals are intended to instruct the children of wizards. In this fashion, the book becomes meta-fiction, much like the numerous copies of the Necronomicon which can be occasionally spotted on a bookshelf. They’re short, well-written and enjoyable. Furthermore, Rowling has included commentary on the tales as written by Albus Dumbledore and, even more interesting, he penned his thoughts before the events at Half Blood Prince’s end. While his words leave no doubt as to the intended moral of each tale, (in case you couldn’t distill it from the tale itself), he does provide history and context which would feel right at home for any wizard reader.
As a final note, all proceeds from the book go to a charity Rowling established, The Children’s High Level Group, which aims to help those children in Europe who are wards of the state, to put it mildly.
-K
Would you believe I’ve never read the Harry Potter series? (Whereas my wife has read them all 3 times.)
Sure, I’d believe that. Morgan hasn’t read any of them either, although she has seen the movies.
-K
I checked out after entry number two in the film series. Chris Columbus’ directing reminds me of Wonder Bread — unchallenging, devoid of flavor. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if the flicks get batter after that, but they lost me early.
The first movie was alright. It was a very faithful adaptation of the book. The second movie is my least favorite.
Of course, they started playing musical directors and screenwriters after that point, so it gets interesting to see what made the cut from the book and what didn’t.
I think Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite book, but Order of the Phoenix is my favorite movie so far. It’s a nice taut adaptation of the longest of the seven books.
-K
I read this for my own 52-in-52 a few weeks ago and posted about it here. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Keep it up with the 52-in-52, by the way – I’ll be watching your feed to see what kind of selections you find.
As for the films, I have to say that I found the first two to be faithful but dull… Azkaban is by far my favourite because it finally captured Harry Potter in terms of tone and style instead of just note-for-note events, and I think a lot of its lessons carried over to what worked in Phoenix as well.
Thanks, Nick.
I got a good start, so this year is looking pretty good already.
-K