Harry Potter Has All The Luck

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them by J.K. Rowling

If Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is Harry Potter's textbook, then Potter and his classmates are lucky kids. Certainly, a textbook is what this thin soft-cover book claims to be. It is supposed to be a reprint of the textbook that the Hogwarts students use in their Care of Magical Creatures class.

Of everything J.K. Rowling has written, Fantastic Beasts is the one that most strains credibility. I consider myself somewhat of an expert on textbooks-I edit and write them for a living. Fantastic Beasts is simply missing several important elements if we're to believe it's a textbook.

Textbooks are long. Even with the extra preface and introduction, this "textbook" is only 42 pages long. The students are supposedly spending hours each week studying this textbook over at least two years. This book could be memorized in that amount of time. Most beasts have only a paragraph or two about them.

Textbooks are dry. I really think Rowling tried to make this dry, but she just couldn't manage to suppress her natural wit and creativity. If anything is dry, it's the humor displayed by Dumbledore in his forward. He explains how this book came to be available to us "Muggles" (humans who lack wizarding ability) and that all of the proceeds go to charity. He also gently reminds us that as the proceeds go to charity, this isn't a book we should loan to our friends. Our friends should get their own copy. That way they'll avoid the "thief curse" that was placed on the book.

Textbooks have lots of complex exhibits and charts. The illustrations in this book are simple black and white pencil drawings. Not only do they evoke little interest, but I don't think an instructor could write a single test question on them!

Textbooks include footnotes that are replete with extensive references. The footnotes in this text actually provided useful and humorous side notes. The cross-references to other textbooks were short, easy to read, and missing all of the APA-mandated details about where, when, and by whom the book was published. (Some of them also made me wonder whether we would eventually see more books like this with the titles that are referred to in the footnotes!)

The author's name is missing initials after it. Come now, are we really supposed to believe that the textbook author is an industry expert who actually works in the field? Who's ever heard of that? Textbooks are written by university profs who need tenure or an extra cash flow via royalties. This book claims to be written by Newt Scamander, an employee of the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Beasts. He wrote the textbook based on his practical knowledge and research.

Textbooks have indexes and review questions. This book actually arranged creatures alphabetically making them easy to find without an extensive reference. User-friendly textbooks? What will the wizarding world think of next? No wonder the Dursleys look down their noses at mages!

This textbook costs only $3.99. Need I say more?

All right, I might buy the theory that this is a partial textbook. Perhaps this textbook has been judiciously edited to make it readable and enjoyable for we lucky Muggles. You could probably convince me that each of the short paragraphs that introduce the creatures are merely the section header for a more extensive entry that would include the animal's classification, statistics on its height/weight, and details on their care and control. Perhaps that information was considered classified and hidden with some sort of charm spell.

I'll allow that this book does bear some similarities to a textbook:

1. There are five sections to the introduction.
2. The author leaves out a few known creatures so that there can be a 53rd revised edition, cutting out all those annoying second-hand sales that deprive him of royalties.
3. It is filled with doodles and graffiti from its owner, Harry Potter, and his friends.
4. There are a few factual inaccuracies which Potter and friends were quick to point out in the book's margins.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was released to the muggle world as a fundraiser for Comic Relief U.K. J.K. Rowling is donating all of her royalties to the organization and everyone involved in the book's production-from the printer to the publisher to the distributor-has donated their goods and services or offered them at a reduced rate. It's a wonderful move that gives the readers clamoring for more Potter something to be amused by, and helps put money to work on behalf of children who need it.

In keeping with Comic Relief's goal of doing good through entertainment and laughter, Fantastic Beasts is definitely designed to provide laughs. Even the disclaimer page is fun with the student doodlings and the joint publishing houses of Scholastic, Inc. and Obscurus Books (located in Diagon Alley).

Although I bought the American edition of the book, there were more British spellings that crept through than is normal in Rowling's books. Indeed, I started to wonder if the editor completely missed page 14 where there was both a "programme" and "tonnes" instead of "program" and "tons." However, I rather enjoyed the reminders that this was ultimately a British book.

Rowling hasn't at all convinced me that Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a textbook. She has, though, convinced me that she has a wonderful sense of humor and a strong sense of civic responsibility. This book is worth much more than its $3.99 cost, and it's one I would encourage anyone familiar with the Harry Potter series to purchase.

--B. Redman