The Perfect Christmas Gift

December 4th was a red-letter day for Potterheads anticipating the release of "Tales of Beedle The Bard," a collection of 5 fairy tales told to little children of wizarding families. For us Muggles, we became aware of this book in the last installment, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. These tales are a few of the important puzzles of that book. It came into the possession of Hermione Granger after the demise of Hogwarts Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Translated from ancient runes, the stories include: The Wizard and the Hopping Pot, The Fountain of Fair Fortune, The Warlock's Hairy Heart, Babbitty Rabbity and Her Cackling Stump, and The Tale of The Three Brothers.

All tales give us an insight on the wizarding community's opinions (or beliefs) about love, muggles, and death. But more importantly, these are cautionary stories of use or misuse of magic. It also contains helpful (and often hilarious) commentaries by Albus Dumbledore himself.

With JK Rowling's knack of weaving the fantastic, this book is a wonderful side dish to the 7 already stowed in your shelf.

Another bonus is that the net sales of this book goes to the Children's High Level Group, a charity foundation co-founded by JK Rowling and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne.

A wonderful Christmas gift for yourself, your family and friends, and of course to the children that will benefit from your patronage.

The Final Countdown for Harry Potter

It is quite amusing to know that the Harry Potter books are included in the list of most-banned books. For the light of me, I really don't know why it is included in that list and I would like to know the criteria (not that I plan to write something subversive - heck, I don't even know if I have the chops to write anything that makes sense at all).

JK Rowling joins the ranks of Harper Lee (To Kill With A Mockingbird), JD Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye), and John Steinbeck (The Grapes of Wrath). Not bad company.

This morning I decided to surf to the J.K. Rowling official site to find out what's happening in the Harry Potter universe. According to the news, she will be having a moonlight signing on July 21st at the Natural History Museum in London. One thousand seven hundred fans will receive FREE copies of the book.

Being the cheapskate that I am, news like this is depressing to me. Man! Free autographed Harry Potter books and I'm stuck in here in archipelago NOWHERE. (well, not exactly nowhere, it's just too far from the action MOST OF THE TIME ... geez, I don't know if that made it worse, hahaha).

Anyway, the site is pretty interesting to navigate through. It has a writer's desk as it's main page, and you point and click your mouse at an image which will get you to a particular page. What makes it interesting (to me) is the clutter on the main page itself. There is a cell phone, a keyboard, butterfly, a diary, a watch, some pens, scattered paper clips, crumpled papers ...and wrappers of gum. I don't know if this is how messy her desk can get in real life. I don't even know if she can get work done with a desk like that (but perhaps she does, my table is worse ... and I used to crunch numbers for a living). I like the mess. It's familiar and homey to me. Hahaha.

The franchise has 6 books out and the 7th installment (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) will be released 6 weeks from now ... and I guess a lot of fans out there already reserved a copy at their favorite bookstore. This will be the last of the series and those who read the book (and/or watched the movie) wonder what fate awaits for Potter and his friends.

I had a thread going in one of the forums I used to frequent to, with the question will Harry Potter die in the end? I believe there was also a poll in it. If my memory serves me right, there are more optimists out there expecting that this series will have a happy ending. I, belonging to the morbidly realistic group, believe that Harry will die in the end. I try to picture myself in JK Rowling's predicament. If I end this series with Harry living but some of the characters killed off (some of the important ones already whacked) ... sure, everybody's happy, but wouldn't Harry be tortured in some way (like Frodo Baggins of LOTR - in the end he leaves Middle Earth). But if the rest of the cast lives, and Harry dies ... it's also sad BUT at least Harry get to fulfill his destiny of being a hero. (Hahaha, what twisted logic!) After all, great heroes die in the end ( ...those who lived end up in politics and showbiz and make fools of themselves in the end). And I guess it would be too corny if this thing will have a fairy tale ending.

Which ever way this series will end though, I think most will agree that JK Rowling is one of the most influential writing figures of this century. She wrote for kids, and ended up making the adults read as well. That in itself is a feat.