Review: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander and JK Rowling

I listened to the audio book of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them read by Eddie Redmayne in the car on the way to Sydney for Christmas this year. The book is nothing like the movie of the same name. What I found instead was a meta fiction style text book from Hogwarts Library written of course by the talented JK Rowling in the guise of Newt Scamander.

Published in 2001, this is a guide book to the magical creatures in the Harry Potter universe. After an introduction about the differences between beings and beasts and then being acquainted with their different danger levels we progressed through an A-Z of magical creatures.

JK Rowling's imagination really knows no bounds, and while the description for each beast was creative, informative and sometimes amusing, it was ultimately a dry read. I also think something was lost in the audio experience, as I've seen other readers who enjoyed the illustrations and margin notes from Ron Weasley that obviously weren't available in the audio production.

Overall, this was a great way to break up the monotony of the long drive, but didn't add all that much to my enjoyment of the Harry Potter series.

My rating = **

Carpe Librum!