Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages

Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them 42 pp. and Quidditch Through the Ages 56 pp. J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling’s Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages are an immensely enjoyable post-script to the Harry Potter series. While they have little effect on the plot of the books, I tremendously enjoyed Rowling’s choice to compose and publish them. 

Magical Beasts gives the reader a view of the species which populate the world she created outside of the steady dribble of plot-relavant information needed in each of the books. It is a simple bestiary, giving tidy descriptions of the magical beasts living on the outskirts of the wizarding world. Rowling does not let up from her strong writing which dominated the series proper. Each description fills out the species in question, giving us a sense of what a wizard would know if they were to meet such a creature in the woods or mountains outside of their normal lives.

Quidditch Through the Ages delivers exactly what it says on the cover, a history and explanation of the game of Quidditch. In this book the history of Quidditch by itself is perhaps the less interesting point of the text. One could read it as simply a study of the development of the game so universally admired in the wizarding world, but there is a stronger element there. As we study and learn about the development of wizarding past-times, Rowling gives the reader a much better sense of the changes in wizarding society as history has maintained its steady march through and around them. By the end of the book, simply having watched the wizards retreat into hiding and focus their efforts on maintaining secrecy, the reader has a much deeper understanding of the pervading atmosphere of secrecy which so dominates the Harry Potter series.

The presence of these two volumes as world-building devices leads me to comment on some of Rowling’s world-building throughout the Harry Potter series. In books five, six, and seven Rowling devotes an entire chapter to painting a picture of the magical world’s dealings with Voldemort’s evil outside of Harry’s life. These chapters were richly rewarding on two levels. First they set the tone for the rest of each book perfectly, especially the chapter with the Prime Minister in The Half-Blood Prince. In that chapter especially, the pervading mist which so unnerves the Prime Minister forces the reader into a state of unease, longing for the warm comfort of the earlier books.

Would I recommend Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages? On their own, no, but in the context of the whole series? Certainly yes.

Score: 3.9/5

Would I keep these on my bookshelf? Yes

-Mr. Cheddar