I don't think I will ever be able to give less than five stars to anything written by JKR.
Again, this was such a cute little book and a light read for in-between.
I enjoyed reading about the many different beasts and beings and loved the introduction by Newt Scamander as well as Harry's and Ron's notes (they were hilarious and such a unique touch!).
The whole library set is a door given to us by JKR that leads us back into the world of Harry Potter and I can only highly recommend them to eve
ry Harry Potter fan.
I'm also very excited about the upcoming "Fantastic Beasts" movie!
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I read this because I saw the film--which I liked pretty well--and thought I should--and also as a Rowling completist--read. It's set up as if it were a facsimile of Harry Potter's Hogwarts School textbook written by Newt Scamander. Like the film (so far, anyway, as there are three more films to come, I am told), there's not much story here. It's a short encyclopedia of 75 beasts, some of them familiar to anyone, some of the familiar to wizards and those (like me) who love them: Acromantula (large spiders, just for Ron), Bowtruckles, Chimaera, Doxy, Hungarian Horntail, Flobberworm, Hippogriff, Troll, Werewolf, and so on. The main point of the book is sheer invention, what attracts anyone to fantasy. The creation of fantastic fantastical creatures!
This little book is a little bit amusing, especially for nostalgia's sake. Of course the list is tame compared to an encyclopedia of Japanese Yokai, and might have used the greater imagination of Dr. Seuss, especially for artistic renditions, but this does have Harry's smart-aleck marginal comments throughout.
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