So if I say that Rowling's latest efforts on behalf of the Comic Relief fund, the two booklets entitled "Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them" and "Quidditch Through the Ages," are less than fantastic, I do so with a heavy heart and lingering pain in my scar-less head.
Weighing in at less than 100 pages combined, the booklets are written under pseudonyms; Kennilworthy Whisp pens the more amusing "Quidditch through the Ages," while Newt Scamander is the author of the textbook "Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them."
The gimmick works for the most part, especially those little touches of humor for which J.K. is so rightfully praised. For example, on the first page of "Quidditch" there is a note from Irma Pince, the feared Hogwarts librarian, on the dangers of ripping, tearing, shredding, bending, folding, defacing, disfiguring, smearing, smudging, throwing, dropping or otherwise mistreating the "library books."
If you have not read the other Potter books, all this will be completely over your head, and the names of the borrowers that appear on the front page, names like O. Wood, F. Weasley and H. Granger, will also mean nothing. On the other hand, if you have not read the previous Potter books you have been living under a rock, and deserve to be turned over to a Quintaped for lunch.
"Quidditch" takes us through the evolution of the broomstick, and the advancement of the game of Quidditch in laborious and exact detail-maybe this appeals to 10-year-old boys, but I found myself getting a little lost in the various positions and moves which include the "Starfish and Stick," a move which, frankly, J.K. must have invented about two hours before deadline, involving as it does more appendages than the ordinary human (or wizard) possesses.
What makes this book better than "Fantastical Beasts" is the attempt at some continuity. The latter book, on the other hand, is merely a plain listing off of different types of magical animals.
Granted, "Fantastical Beasts" is a textbook, reproduced directly from Harry's copy, complete with his doodles and notes, but that does not mean it should be as monotonous as it becomes. By the end I was hardly in the mood to tell the difference between a Shrake and Streeler, and, judging by Harry's marginalia, neither was he.
Again, there are those sly nudges at adult humor, especially in the footnotes-my favorite has to be the annotation to the Werewolf entry: "for a heartrending account of one wizard's battle with lycanthropy, see the classic 'Harry Snout, Human Heart'," but these touches are rare and the textbook ends suddenly with an entry on the Yeti without any concluding or summarizing statement.
Despite the books' shortcomings, the charitable aspect of the venture overwhelms the instinct to deride "Quidditch" and "Fantastical Beasts" as mere money-making devices. So what if they aren't Literature-neither are, gasp, the other Potter books-and these books will be snapped up eagerly by fans as a welcome diversion at least until the next Harry Potter spin-off hits the markets. And trust me, I will be the first on the block to own it-whatever it will be.