For a tale by tale discussion of Beedle the Bard (BTB) with separate threads for each tale, please head over to The Hog’s Head where Travis is on the job. I have just finished BTB and hope to put up a thought per day the next few days; the livelier conversation will surely be at The Hog’s Head, something akin to the Thirty Threads here after Hallows was published last July.

Tonight, I want to thank JohnABaptist for taking the reins today. I was able to celebrate the Feast, read Beedle, and meet my Friday deadline early thanks to JAB so I am very grateful.

Next, I feel obliged to answer the 12 questions I posted late last night for those at midnight releases: [Read more…]

It’s Beedle the Bard Day around the world. The volume of wizarding fairy tales that J K Rowling hand wrote for a few select friends and one lucky auction patron has now been repurposed into a specialty book and is launched into the market today to support one of Joanne’s favorite charities, The Children’s High Level Group. This is all wonderful, but one question keeps nagging at me–But why today?

What special significance does December 4th, 2008 have that it should be chosen as a date preferable to all other launch dates? Why should the Harry Potter Marketing Machine so noted for judiciously selecting dates that further augment the series’ legendary commercial drawing power choose today?

Today is, after all, a day in the middle of the week. A day when good children are in school. A day when Mommy and Daddy (and their credit cards) are at work. [Read more…]

It’s Beedle the Bard Day at last! Please share your praise, criticism, first thoughts, and second thoughts about these long awaited Tales from Ms. Rowling.

Here are twelve questions for to guide your reflections: [Read more…]

HP Progs gives us the perfect lead in for the release of Tales of Beedle the Bard by interviewing Travis Prinzi, webmaster of The Hog’s Head.org, friend of this blog, and author of Harry Potter and Imagination (now available for pre-order here and the Table Of Contents for which brilliant book can be found here). The discussion in the comment boxes at HP Progs took an interesting turn when Travis urged a reader to consider the possibility that Ms. Rowling’s work does indeed have an intrinsic moral message. [Read more…]

I confess: I don’t surf Harry Potter fan sites. Not Leaky, Not MuggleNet, not HPANA, no live journal weblogs, no fan fiction or slash or Wizard Rock. The Hogs Head.org I do visit regularly but that’s about it. This means, of course, that I am as clueless about what most Harry Potter readers are talking about at any given time unless the subject is sufficiently “big news” for Wizard News to pick it up. All Pros regularly send me things they think I will be interested in and they’re usually correct.

I have little need, consequently, to search the internet for Potter topics. Aeschylus, Dorothy Sayers, William Penn, Coleridge, Tolkien, Dante and friends are all in the books — and no one else, to my knowledge, has done the heavy lifting we do here that is necessary to unpack Rowling’s artistry therein.

Why, then, should I care about the websites devoted to the actors playing the leads in the Harry Potter movies? [Read more…]