literature

I've read a number of the "accessory" books inspired by Harry Potter, and this one is really good. It's a little like "Magical Worlds of Harry Potter"(which I also recommend)in that it's set up by alphabetical entries you can easily reference without necessarily reading it in any particular order. It's very different in that "Companion" has subject by subject entries, referenced by which book/chapter/page it concerns (rather than questions based on the books as entries)and is a little more scholarly. If you love history, this book is probably the most detailed and informative (along with Buckbeak, who knew people charged all kinds of animals and even bugs with crimes)! You can learn arithmancy, tea leaf reading, palmistry, runes, and so on. This book is so complete, I don't think the authors missed anything connected with the books, regardless of how obscure. Give it a try-I actually rate it around a 4 1/2 stars.

While this book does offer a lot of good source material on subjects touched upon in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potters novels (one through four, at the time this book was written), it is by no means an indispensable addition to the Pottermaniac's personal library. The references to events and personages in the Harry Potter books are rather haphazard, and in many cases it is apparent that the Potter link is primarily a gimmick designed to sell more books. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though, because there is information in this book I had not encountered elsewhere, and it does reinforce one's impressive appraisal of the fiber of actual legendry that went into the creation of Rowling's novels.

This book offers a concise encyclopedia of magical subjects, creatures, and legends. Much of the material will be familiar to anyone well-read, yet there are aspects to some of even the most familiar of legends, such as that of the werewolf or vampire, that I was unaware of; this consisted for the most part of the different ideas held by different cultures. What was evil to a European of the Middle Ages was sometimes a portent of good to an inhabitant of China or India, for example. Perhaps the most interesting items discussed in these pages are the more obscure legends of unfamiliar beings which I had never heard of before and which I had assumed J.K. Rowling had invented: e.g., grundylows, kappas, and redcaps.

The authors, a professional magician and his academic daughter, have written a book that can easily be read by laymen in the ways of magic. The concise, far from elaborate discussions of each topic can be easily understood by young readers obsessed with Harry Potter, making it a welcome, interesting, entertainingly informative read that does not so much add to the legendry created by J.K. Rowling as it does highlight the sturdiness of the foundation upon which her magical adventure stories are built.

A great night table book, it is arranged in short, alphabetical entries that can be read quickly. The authors seem uniquely suited to their subject-matter and obviously know their stuff. But, while they try to cite passages from the books as much as possible, most of the material just doesn't apply. JK Rowling seems to have skimmed a volume like this, then put it into a blender and extracted her own take on it all. It's liable to make purists a tad angry. It's all very interesting in its own right, though. I would have liked a lot more info on the "real" stuff, and less of a stretch to make it applicable.