I may be inviting some hate mail by critiquing the work of J.K. Rowling, but I just can’t help it. I appreciate what she’s done and I love the world that she’s created, but Lord in Heaven, that woman needs an editor!…

For those who aren’t familiar with my position on Harry Potter… the first 3 books ROCKED! They were wildly creative, unconventional, tightly crafted and well written… beautiful. Few run on sentances, very little digression from the point. They moved with purpose while still peppered with the little tidbits that would seed the later stories. However, the last 4 books drove me nuts. To quote a great movie (Dude, Where’s my Car?)… and then… and then… and then… they dragged on, they digressed, they were chalked full of ideas and events that did little to further the story. To me it seemed that she was writing a long book to prove that she could write a long book.

Though not long, Beedle the Bard falls in the same category. Cute idea. Loved the concept. The tales themselves were sprightly and refreshing… a little retro throw back to the Fredrick Warne books I used to read as a child, but the endnotes and particularly the footnotes to the end notes left little to be desired. I got the idea the Dumbledore cared about these stories as they were unconventional portaits of Muggle / Wizard relations… all well and good, but after the first story, who cares? Dumbledore doesn’t seem to be writing as an academic, yet there is very little in his writing that is particularly revealing about him… so if its not academic and its not personal, what is the purpose of Dumbledore’s notations? Why is he writing what would be ablsolutely common knowledge to a wizard? It just all feels like an exercise in redundancy.

That all being said, I’m glad I read the book. At the garage sale price of $1.00 I’m not disappointed. Had it been longer I would have put it asside. As it is a perfect lazy day digest size, I may just pick it up again if I need something for dockside reading at the cottage (if I had a cottage that is).