Book Review

Tales Of Beedle The Bard, J.K. Rowling
The last and best of the original companion pieces to the Harry Potter novels. This is a great little book. The Wizarding world not only has its own government, fake news, sports, and tabloids, but also its own fairy tales. Tales Of Beedle The Bard is a set of five fairy tales featuring witches and wizards that comply with the rules set up in the HP universe since that's where they belong. They have happy endings and sad, One of them has a dark and violent twist much like Red Riding Hood in its original form, as well as other classic tales.
The stories themselves can stand alone with no connection to the HP series - and they're all really good stories! My favorite was The Fountain of Fair Fortune. But, Rowling devised a way of connecting them to the HP universe by composing a literary commentary after each tale by Albus Dumbledore. He writes his interpretive opinions based on notes he's taken as he's studied Beedle's tales over the years as well as publication histories and any controversies surrounding them in the Wizarding world. This keeps everything tied together as we see familiar names and places from the books cropping up in his commentary.
This book can also be read separately from the main seven novels. Although The Tale of the Three Brothers is featured prominently in the seventh book, its ultimate impact on the primary story line of the series is kept secret in this novelette. I loved this one a lot. I'm glad I got the whole set.