The Tales of Beedle the Bard

The Tales of Beedle the Bard

By J. K. Rowling

Published by Children's High Level Group (2008)

Reading Level: Ages 9-12 years

Pages: 128

Genre: Fantasy

Summary: There are five stories and each story is accompanied by a commentary by Dumbledore. The first story is called "The Wizard and the Hoping Pot". It is about a wizard that inherits a pot from his father. The wizard doesn't believe in helping muggles. The pot starts to hop and reflect the afflictions of everyone in the community until the wizard helps them all. Dumbledore said this story was changed so that it no longer reflected the same values. The next story, "The Fountain of Fair Fortune", was about three witches and a clumsy knight that are allowed into a garden to find a fountain with the hopes that drinking from it will cure their problems. They have to pass trials and at each one someone leaves their problems. The knight gets to drink form it, then the knight marries one of the witches and the fountain was not magic, they had solved their own problems. Dumbledore said they tried doing a stage production of this a Hogwarts and it ended in disaster. "The Warlock's Hairy Hart" was about a wizard that thought love was ridiculous so he took his out and hid it away. He decided to charm a girl and he offered to show it to the girl and when they came to it it was hairy, the wizard put it back in, but the heart had become warped and strong. It made the wizard kill the girl for her heart, then the wizard killed himself to stop the hairy heart. Dumbledore talked about the fact that we can't become invulnerable. "Babbitty Rabbitty and Her Cackling Stump" is about a king that wants to do magic. He send out his hounds to find and kill all the magic folk. A slight of hand magician pretends to teach the king magic, but when the king wants to do magic on his own the magician goes to Babbitty, who is a witch, and makes her help him by hiding and then doing the spells he attempts. But when the king wants to bring someone back to life, Babbity is unable to do the spell and she is accused of stopping the kings magic. she runs away and is chased. They find a tree. Believing it is her they chop it down and the stump laughs and tells them to kill the magician which reveals he is false, and then tells the king he is cursed and if he kills any more witches or wizards he will feel intense pain like he is being chopped in half. They stop the killing and a rabbit hops off. Dumbledore said it is impossible to bring the dead back. The last story is "The Tale of the Three Brothers". It is about wizards that are met by death who offers each a wish. The first wants the most powerful wand ever, which he was given, he second wants to be able to bring others from death and he is given a stone with that power. The last brother wants to be able to hide from death and death gives him his own cloak. The first brother's wand was stolen and then he was killed, the second brother called the ghost of his dead love they weren't truly together so he killed himself to join her. The third brother hides from death for a very long time then passes the cloak on and then leaves life as death's equal. Dumbledore talks about the history of the items and that they may exist in his time.

My Reaction: The stories were fun, the one about the heart was disturbing but I enjoyed the rest. I also really enjoyed Dumbledore's commentary. I'm excited to read the Harry Potter series again with this new information.

Potential Problems: The hairy heart story is disturbing and a little scary. This is also death and fighting.

Recommendations: I would recommend this to all Harry Potter enthusiasts.