The Tales of Beedle the Bard is the first book written by J.K. Rowling since her Harry Potter series and I am happy to say, she is still a great entertainer. I picked this book up, thinking that my eight year old daughter might enjoy it, and, as I read the stories to her, it was me who ended up thoroughly hooked. It was great to find a set of good, old-fashioned fairy tales, and both I and my daughter loved them.

The book has five short fairy tales – some of which have overt life lessons incorporated into them and some which don’t. The first story was The Wizard and the Hopping Pot. I was immediately hooked when it started out “There was once . . .”. It is the story of a kindly old wizard whose son has a few lessons to learn about life. The next story entitled The Fountain of Fair Fortune was my favorite and it was the story of three witches and the unlucky knight they encounter on their way to bathe in a magic fountain. I really liked the lesson this story had to teach.

The third tale is reminiscent of those Grimm brothers whose fairy tales were not always so nice (remember – Hansel & Gretal were going to be cooked and eaten!). The story is named The Warlock’s Hairy Heart and what a hairy heart it is. The ending was a little sad for my eight year old and I had to do some explaining because she wanted to know why the warlock killed himself and the girl in the end but it was not inappropriate for a young reader – not any more inappropriate that the ending of The Little Mermaid or a Brothers Grimm tale.

The fourth story was a story of a witch who has a few lessons to teach to a greedy man and a foolish king. Babbity Rabbity And Her Cackling Stump is a unique name for a unique story and my daughter especially liked this one. The fifth and last story in the book is the Tale of the Three Brothers. And, just like the title says, three brothers meet Death and he is not too happy that they are alive to do it. Death tries to trick them but, sometimes, even Death can be fooled.

As I said before, I was so happy to find a book of real fairy tales. They were fun to read and more than appropriate for children of all ages. After reading and loving these fairy tales so much, I am wondering if it’s time for me to read some fantasy stories again and perhaps even start the Harry Potter series. Yes, that’s right, I never read the Harry Potter series, but, now I’ve got a real incentive to do so, if The Tales of Beedle the Bard are anything to go by.

Check out The Tales of Beedle the Bard at online retailers like Amazon.