The inspiration for the 2016 Harry Potter “prequel” film
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,
which is currently in theatres, was a small chapbook that J.K. Rowling
wrote under the pseudonym Newt Scamander. It was a cute, but little,
encyclopedia of the mystical magical creatures of Rowling’s Harry Potter
wizarding world, written by Rowling to benefit the charity
Comic Relief in 2001 (
see previous review).
When the movie studios insisted on additional movies in the
Potterverse, Rowling came up with the adventures of Newt Scamander as he
researched his creature encyclopedia. This book is the story of the new
film, told in screenplay form. I’ll have to admit, while I enjoyed the
film, the fast pace, heavy accents and loud sound effects made hearing
all of the dialog clearly nearly impossible, so I very much enjoyed
reading this book to catch the parts of the story I missed. The
drawbacks of reading a screenplay are that you really don’t get the
level of description and character development, or internal dialog and
introspection, that you do with a novel. However this was still a fun
read, and handily supplements the plot of the film. Potter fanatics
won’t want to miss this, and anyone who saw the movie but wants to get a
better understanding of it will appreciate this as well!
(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try the original chapbook,
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newt Scamander (J.K. Rowling))
( official
J.K. Rowling web site (U.S.) )
Recommended by
Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library
Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?
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