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Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them — “Harry Potter” Companion Book

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Awards

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Book Review

This book has been reviewed by Focus on the Family’s marriage and parenting magazine. It is a companion novel to the “Harry Potter” series.

Plot Summary

This textbook belonged to Harry Potter, the leading character in the “Harry Potter” series. In addition to covering magical creatures, it holds handwritten notes from his friend, Ronald Weasley. The author, Newt Scamander, is a Magizoologist, a person who studies magical creatures.

Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, wrote the forward. Dumbledore explains that the special edition is being made available to Muggles with proceeds benefitting Comic Relief U K, a charity. He assures Muggles that the magical creatures are fictional.

This textbook is the result of Scamander’s many years of travel and research. It describes the history of Magizoology and the 75 magical species found worldwide.

Scamander discusses reasons why Muggles don’t notice magical creatures. Muggles’ fear of magic and the persecution of wizards resulted in wizards going into hiding. They made a decision to hide magic and magical creatures from the human eye and to create the illusion that neither has ever existed outside of the imagination.

The Ministry of Magic (M.O.M.) gives classifications to all known magical beasts, beings and spirits. At a glance, it is a guide to the dangerous nature of each creature ranging from X for boring to XXXXX for known wizard killers and impossible to train or domesticate. The Acromantula (a monstrous eight-eyed spider capable of human speech) is classified as XXXXX while the Flobberworm (a thick brown worm) gets a M.O.M. classification of X.

Christian Beliefs

None

Other Belief Systems

The belief that magic is real and all around us permeates this book. It is mentioned that ghosts, classified as beings, not beasts, left an early summit on classification because of the Council’s emphasis on the needs of the living over the wishes of the dead. One of the beasts described in the book is a Kappa, a Japanese water demon. The Kelpie is a water demon that takes the shape of horse.

Authority Roles

Newt’s mother encouraged his interest in magical creatures.

Profanity & Violence

Some magical creatures are very dangerous, classified by M.O.M. as known wizard killers. Others, like the Lethifold, which is a black, cloak-like creature that glides on the ground, covers a sleeping victim and devours it whole, are frightening in their description. Two clans of wizards duel, killing each other.

Sexual Content

A wizard fakes his own death by Lethifold in order to leave his wife and children, but is soon found living with another woman.

Discussion Topics

Get free discussion questions for this book and others, at FocusOnTheFamily.com/discuss-books.

Additional Comments

A drunken duel between two wizards results in one of them being killed.

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Book reviews cover the content, themes and worldviews of fiction books, not their literary merit, and equip parents to decide whether a book is appropriate for their children. The inclusion of a book’s review does not constitute an endorsement by Focus on the Family.