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Hogwarts Library #1-2

Harry Potter Schoolbooks Box Set: Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them

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Fans of Harry Potter will love the chance to really get inside the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Now, straight from the Hogwarts School Library, come two textbooks used by Harry and all his fellow wizards-in-training. Written by J. K. Rowling under two delightful pseudonyms, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them come packaged in a fabulous box set.


Did you know that in 1938 the wizard Zacharias Mumps set down the first full description of the game of Quidditch? Written by a renowned Quidditch expert (and "the author of many Quidditch-related works"), Quidditch Through the Ages reveals everything readers need to know about the most important sport in the wizarding world. From the evolution of the flying broomstick and the rules for playing Quidditch to the changes in the sport since the 14th century (up until today) and details about all the Quidditch teams of Britain and Ireland, this book is a must-have for Quidditch fans old and new. Well researched and filled with diagrams, definitions, and more, Quidditch Through the Ages is what every wizard-in-training needs to be a pro.


Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them offers a complete listing of all the fantastic beasts that exist in Harry Potter's world. From the Acromantula ("a monstrous eight-eyed spider capable of human speech") to the Yeti ("also known as Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman"), here's well-researched information on where they come from, what they look like, what they eat, and, most important, what to do if you ever meet one face-to-face. This indispensible textbook also includes insight into Muggle awareness of fantastic beasts, information on why Magizoology matters, and much more. Adding to the fun and authenticity, Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them features scribbled comments in the margins from Harry Potter, the previous owner of this book, as well as his friends Ron and Hermione.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

85 people are currently reading
7467 people want to read

About the author

J.K. Rowling

626 books232k followers
See also: Robert Galbraith
Although she writes under the pen name J.K. Rowling, pronounced like rolling, her name when her first Harry Potter book was published was simply Joanne Rowling. Anticipating that the target audience of young boys might not want to read a book written by a woman, her publishers demanded that she use two initials, rather than her full name. As she had no middle name, she chose K as the second initial of her pen name, from her paternal grandmother Kathleen Ada Bulgen Rowling. She calls herself Jo and has said, "No one ever called me 'Joanne' when I was young, unless they were angry." Following her marriage, she has sometimes used the name Joanne Murray when conducting personal business. During the Leveson Inquiry she gave evidence under the name of Joanne Kathleen Rowling. In a 2012 interview, Rowling noted that she no longer cared that people pronounced her name incorrectly.

Rowling was born to Peter James Rowling, a Rolls-Royce aircraft engineer, and Anne Rowling (née Volant), on 31 July 1965 in Yate, Gloucestershire, England, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Bristol. Her mother Anne was half-French and half-Scottish. Her parents first met on a train departing from King's Cross Station bound for Arbroath in 1964. They married on 14 March 1965. Her mother's maternal grandfather, Dugald Campbell, was born in Lamlash on the Isle of Arran. Her mother's paternal grandfather, Louis Volant, was awarded the Croix de Guerre for exceptional bravery in defending the village of Courcelles-le-Comte during the First World War.

Rowling's sister Dianne was born at their home when Rowling was 23 months old. The family moved to the nearby village Winterbourne when Rowling was four. She attended St Michael's Primary School, a school founded by abolitionist William Wilberforce and education reformer Hannah More. Her headmaster at St Michael's, Alfred Dunn, has been suggested as the inspiration for the Harry Potter headmaster Albus Dumbledore.

As a child, Rowling often wrote fantasy stories, which she would usually then read to her sister. She recalls that: "I can still remember me telling her a story in which she fell down a rabbit hole and was fed strawberries by the rabbit family inside it. Certainly the first story I ever wrote down (when I was five or six) was about a rabbit called Rabbit. He got the measles and was visited by his friends, including a giant bee called Miss Bee." At the age of nine, Rowling moved to Church Cottage in the Gloucestershire village of Tutshill, close to Chepstow, Wales. When she was a young teenager, her great aunt, who Rowling said "taught classics and approved of a thirst for knowledge, even of a questionable kind," gave her a very old copy of Jessica Mitford's autobiography, Hons and Rebels. Mitford became Rowling's heroine, and Rowling subsequently read all of her books.

Rowling has said of her teenage years, in an interview with The New Yorker, "I wasn’t particularly happy. I think it’s a dreadful time of life." She had a difficult homelife; her mother was ill and she had a difficult relationship with her father (she is no longer on speaking terms with him). She attended secondary school at Wyedean School and College, where her mother had worked as a technician in the science department. Rowling said of her adolescence, "Hermione [a bookish, know-it-all Harry Potter character] is loosely based on me. She's a caricature of me when I was eleven, which I'm not particularly proud of." Steve Eddy, who taught Rowling English when she first arrived, remembers her as "not exceptional" but "one of a group of girls who were bright, and quite good at English." Sean Harris, her best friend in the Upper Sixth owned a turquoise Ford Anglia, which she says inspired the one in her books.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews
Profile Image for Ann.
40 reviews
June 8, 2008
Quidditch through the Ages - Wonderful. I love reading about the extensive history of that magical sport we all know or of which we are unaware, and either love or hate or somewhere in between.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them - The content is great, but the best parts are Harry and Ron's scribbles.
Profile Image for Jessica.
36 reviews21 followers
July 28, 2008
These are two fun, silly books that JK Rowling wrote to support a children's literacy charity. They resemble two of the text books that Harry & Co. use during their time at Hogwart's, and are filled with amusing anecdotes and doodlings that are supposed to be from the character's themselves. A wealth of information from Jo's brilliant, creative mind can be read in each of these books, and all of the proceeds for the sale of the books is donated to the charity!
Profile Image for Alex Telander.
Author 15 books171 followers
January 26, 2011
The most recent Harry Potter books to be released was Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, which came out during the summer of 2000. The next book in the series of seven, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix has been slated for a summer/fall 2002 release. The question remains to the many, man fans is what to read in the meantime? Fortunately J. K. Rowling has produced two chapbooks, Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, whose proceeds go towards Comic Relief.

“Comic Relief is one of Britain’s most famous and successful charities. Begin in 1985, the organization has raised more than $250 million for such charities as the Red Cross, Oxfam, Sight Savers, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and Anti-Slavery International. A special ‘Harry’s Books’ fund has been created where proceeds from the sale of Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them will go to support children’s causes throughout the world. Every book sold counts! Fifty cents will send a child to school for a week – and change his or her life forever” – A Note from J. K. Rowling.

Quidditch Through the Ages by Kennilworthy Whisp (WhizzHard Books, 56 pages. 14 sickles 3 knuts): For the first time ever, a most unique book has been published and released into the muggle world. In these pages you will find not only complete details on how to play the amazing wizard sport of Quidditch, but also a comprehensive history of the game, from its beginning stages to how it is currently played. There is also a complete listing of all the Quidditch teams of Britain, as well as some of the major international teams, including America’s own Sweetwater All-Stars from Texas, and the Fitchburg Finches from Massachusetts.

In this book will also be found a history of the many brooms that have been used in the world of Quidditch, as well as a full listing of the major moves that can be performed during the game. Enough of baseball and football, Quidditch is the game of the future!

Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander (Obscurus Books, 42 pages, 14 sickles 3 knuts): Paired with the release of Quidditch Through the Ages, there is the concise compendium of monsters and beasts. You know you’ve seen strange things, shapes and shadows you can’t explain; monsters you tell yourself don’t exist, especially not in any book! Well, with Fantastic Beasts you will find out the truth: what the beast is called, how dangerous it is, what it exactly looks like, and how to beware it. The book is arranged in alphabetical order, along with a special foreword by none other than Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Together with a Ministry of Magic (M.O.M.) Classification on how dangerous the beast is: XXXXX – Known wizard killer/impossible to train or domesticate (like the Acromantula); XXXX – Dangerous/requires specialist knowledge/skilled wizard may handle (like the Demiguise); XXX – Competent wizard should cope (like the Fwooper); XX – Harmless/may be domesticated (like the Ramora); and X – Boring (like the Horklump).

This book is a must for all who wish to survive in this unusual world where you know everything that goes bump in the night.

Originally published on March 18th 2002.

For over 500 book reviews, and over 40 exclusive author interviews (both audio and written), visit BookBanter.
Profile Image for Willa.
30 reviews
December 30, 2007
A history of the wizard sport-Quidditch! It's awesome. I love this!!! lolol..hahaha I have no life.
Author 1 book3 followers
March 9, 2012
When I was a little girl I desperately wanted to be a Hogwarts student. I always knew that I would be in Gryffindor and on the Quidditch team (Seeker, beater, chaser, keeper-it didn't matter) and I would excel at Defense Against the Dark Arts (what can I say, I'm quick witted:P). It was a dream that would lull me until I was fast asleep and made me envy every kid I saw in Movie Magic Magazine sporting a House scarf. Though never entirely serious about getting my Hogwarts letter late and taking the first train to England, I did really wish that I could step into the Great Hall and listen to Dumbledore's powerful voice as he told us of the upincoming year. I know I'm not the only one who had these dreams, I was one in a thousand. So when my brother found these books and bought them (bless you, baby Jay!), it only transformed me into the HP world further with actual textbooks so that I could learn just like Harry, Ron, and Hermione. This was yet another brilliant Rowling success and she made her fan base so much deeper with these encouraging books that let us, at least every time we picked the books up, be a part of this dynamic, magical world.
Profile Image for Shelby.
14 reviews1 follower
September 28, 2011
Once again, Ms Rowling displays her carefully culled imagination. In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, "notes" taken by Harry and Ron add hilarious commentary to the text itself. In Quidditch Through the Ages, Rowling provides an in-depth history of the game and its teams. I even found myself wondering what team I would support if I was a witch.
These are great additions to the Harry Potter canon. I LOVED both of these books.
Profile Image for Miquel Reina.
Author 2 books385 followers
October 22, 2015
Quidditch Through the Ages:

This tiny book is a fun Annex for all those fans of the magical world of Harry Potter who want to feel like a student of Hogwards.

Spanish version:
Este librito es un divertido anexo para todos aquellos fans del mundo mágico de Harry Potter que quieran explorar los pequeños recovecos de su mundo y sentirse como un alumno más de Hogwards.

-------------------

Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them

This is a little gem to learn more about the rich world that J. K. Rowling has created to Harry Potter. The most curious thing is that this tiny booklet will be the inspiration for a new trilogy of films to be released in the coming months, focusing on its hypothetical author Newt Scamander.

Spanish version:
Ésta es una pequeña joya para aprender más sobre el rico mundo que J. K. Rowling creó para Harry Potter. Lo más curioso del caso es que este diminuto libreto será la inspiración para una nueva trilogía de películas que se estrenarán en los próximos años, centradas en su hipotético autor Newt Scamander.
Profile Image for Arthi.
140 reviews
October 5, 2014
This book is better than Fantastic beasts in the Hogwarts Library collections. It's interesting to know the history of the golden snitch as it came from the bird snidget. Read to complete the Magical series by our beloved Jo.
Profile Image for Amara.
2,363 reviews79 followers
September 19, 2018
Quidditch: Way better than I expected. Her imagination astounds me. It even made me laugh.

Go Ballycastle Bats! Or.. Go Holyhead Harpies!! Or... Go Fitchburg Finches!!!

I can’t decide. But not Sweetwater All-Stars. Because even though I live in Texas. I don’t like this state.

Beasts: So cute. The audiobook is narrated by the very sexy Eddie Redmayne. His accent is pleasant for this American to listen to, because Brits sometimes are hard for me to decipher. I just bought the Kindle in Motion version of this book, so I'll have to re-read it and review that edition:)
Profile Image for MissM.
354 reviews22 followers
May 2, 2012
I read Quidditch Through the Ages first. It was cute, had some interesting "history" of the game and was a little quirky/funny like many things in the HP universe. Short but still enjoyable.

Then I read Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them which has more actual "information" in it but is a bit dry. The little scribbles from Ron and Harry are funny but there's not enough of them. Of the two, this one is more of a real "textbook." I would have loved images or drawings of the creatures since many were so bizarre and hard to picture. I'm sure that would have been a lot more production work/time/expense but it would have made for a more enjoyable book over all.

Still, both books are cute and a nice little bonus and the fact they were made for charity is nice. Worth adding to your HP collection if you're a real fan. The very casual fan probably won't care.
Profile Image for Saffron.
15 reviews22 followers
July 9, 2013
I really liked these two books. They were interesting and full of imagination.

Fantastic Beasts and were to find them was cool to read because in the Harry potter series it mentions certain creatures. You may go along with it without knowing at all what they are like and where they come from. In this book it has the background of a lot of different creature. It says are they dangerous, where they're from and stuff like that. This book was very helpful.

Quidditch through the ages was as interesting. It had stories of important Quidditch players and people who made Quidditch history and much more. To add, it had a lot of the Quidditch teams all around the world. Also, there was the evolution of the game. It when from a few wizards playing in their back yard to being the most popular sport in the wizard world.
Profile Image for Melissa.
4 reviews24 followers
January 25, 2012
I love this box-set! Absolutely adorable! The books themselves are full of information about creatures and the game you've only gotten in necessity in the books. They are very smart and very humorous- I literally laughed out loud many times & read them aloud to my family! I also own the books separately:) It's a very neat way to showcase them on you're book shelf! And will also make a nice gift! ~8-) and the fact that 100% of the proceeds of buying the books in any form go to help the Comic Relief fund! You win on all accounts in my opinion!
Profile Image for Tami.
511 reviews67 followers
October 9, 2008
These two books are quick reads, highly imaginative and entertaining. I often wonder how all these ideas can fit into one humans head. J.K. Rowling is amazing, and the more she can give us the better. I would love Hogwarts: A History, or even a new book along the lines of the prequel she wrote. I am excited for the encyclopedia she is said to be writing, but hope it comes sooner than later. Only a little longer wait for Tales of Beedle the Bard!
Profile Image for Patricia Johnson.
277 reviews2 followers
June 7, 2020
The history of Qudditch describing the "pitch" the "quaffle" , the players "chasers", "beaters" the "golden snitch' - rules etc.

Fantastic Beast & Where to Find Them was more interesting to me...give it 4*s. It is a description of mythical beasts, what country you will find them in, and their characteristics. Similar to the "Bird" books I reference to find the features of each bird (i.e. - habitat, coloring, song or tweet, size etc.)
Profile Image for Pleasace Carroll.
137 reviews
January 25, 2020
Letto in tempi record grazie ad Audible, molto interessante: è un po' come se per noi fosse un manuale di storia e tecniche sportive. Come appendice a quanto detto nei libri di Harry Potter è particolarmente grazioso.
Particolarmente divertenti sono le interpretazioni del narratore degli estratti storici presentati all'interno del flusso descrittivo del libro.
Profile Image for Adrienne.
346 reviews7 followers
September 11, 2018
This was an enjoyable supplement to the Harry Potter books. Surprisingly, I liked this book more than the beasts book, but that could be because I had higher expectations for the beasts book and fairly low ones for Quidditch.

Both my kids are very excited to read this book!
Profile Image for Sarina Grace.
542 reviews
March 11, 2024
****What a collection of little books. I totally forgot they existed.****











😃Speaking of forgetting things, They actually reminded me of something my friend, who is a ‘Simply_Lovely_Reader’ told me: “Forget Me Yesterday, Remember Me Tomorrow” What wise words to say, huh?😃
Profile Image for Taylor Bell.
88 reviews
February 18, 2019
Also love to learn more about the Harry Potter world. Love that you can find out other parts of the story
Profile Image for Kat.
2,314 reviews117 followers
April 2, 2019
Basic Premise: Books theoretically found in the Hogwarts library.

I have reviewed both books separately under their titles.
Profile Image for NoeLautnerStory.
1,048 reviews33 followers
July 16, 2020
Para los verdaderos fans de Harry Potter. Descubres los inicios del Quidditch hasta la actualidad. Muy ligero, lo he leído en inglés y lo he entendido todo.
Profile Image for Mariel.
109 reviews23 followers
November 4, 2020
Always amazed by how imaginative to almost believable the beasts are given how well and fun the descriptions were given to each. Absolutely splendid!
Profile Image for Shawna Davis.
2 reviews
August 28, 2024
I’ve had this since I was 7 years old and still have it to this day and it’s still in peak condition and will continue to have it until I give it to my kids or my nieces or nephews.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews

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