Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them (Hogwarts Library Books) – New Edition – Audiobook & eBook Review

Title: Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them
Author: Newt Scamander (J.K. Rowling)
Series Name: Hogwarts Library Books
Publication Date: 14th March, 2017
Pages: 128
Publishers: Bloomsbury Publishing
Rating:

This won’t be like a normal review, it will mostly be about the differences between the original Library book and the new one and my opinions on the Audiobook.

This is kind of SPOILERY, however not in that I’m giving away information in the book, but more that I’m explaining the changes between the original and new editions of this book. So if you want to be surprised when you get your own copy then you can either skip to the bottom and just read my review of the Audiobook or you can leave and go hide in a corner avoiding the internet until you get your copy because I have a feeling that a lot of people will be talking about this release!!! 

The Original

I own the box set of the original Hogwarts Library set including Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them, Quidditch Through The Ages & The Tales of Beedle The Bard.

I adore this set of books! I love when  Authors add little things like this to their series’s, especially the Harry Potter series where we just can’t get enough information!

While listening to the Audiobook I read along with the original physical edition and the new eBook edition so that I could easily see what changes had been made as it has been a while since I read any of these books.

The Changes

I don’t own a physical copy of this book yet but I’m assuming that it will appear exactly the same as the Ebook does.

There was a couple little things that was different from the original. The first thing is that this new edition is the wizard edition whereas the original is the muggle friendly edition where it is made out to be fiction. The foreword in the original is written by Albus Dumbledore and at the end of the foreword he states that this book is fiction and muggles have nothing to worry about. In the new edition the Foreword is written by Newt himself and explains a little of how he got to discovering these beasts and also that the muggle edition does not contain that foreword.

Illustrations

The next new and amazing thing is the illustrations. They are just gorgeous! The illustrator for the images in was Tomislav Tomic. The Cover design was done by another illustrator though, Olly Moss. The original had small illustrations, but the new edition has detailed drawings of some of the beasts in the book and also lovely illustrations covering half the page for the chapter titles. I will put some images below!

This one is a good example of the difference in illustrations. On the left is the illustration of a Kelpie in the original edition and on the right is the new edition.

I love these new illustrations, they are gorgeous and show the creatures that there is drawings of so much better than the drawings in the original edition!

New Beasts

There was the addition of 6 new beasts in this edition. Including three of the four beasts that have Ilvermorny houses named after them. Wampus Cat (my own house), Thunderbird & The Horned Serpent were all added. The Thunderbird also made an appearance in the Fantastic Beasts movie so they kinda had to add it!

Comic Relief

The piece about comic relief still makes an appearance but there are slight changes. They have take out the paragraph talking about Albus’s foreword as he didn’t write the foreword for the new edition. They also updated the part where is states they have raised £18 million to £20 million! Which is amazing!!

Lumos

They also added info about the organisation Lumos which I’m pretty sure wasn’t created till after the originals were released.

Ron, Hermione & Harry’s Notes

In the original there was notes scribbled all through the book made by Hermione, Harry and Ron, along with a game of tic tac toe and hangman on the back page. The original editions were made to look like Harry’s copies of these textbooks, hence the writing through them. The new edition obviously hasn’t got that as it isn’t Harry’s copy.

I loved these editions to the original editions and really wish that the new edition was made out to be Newt’s copy and had his notes written on it, with extra bits of info and stuff! That would be awesome! In the original edition however I never understood by Harry would have a Muggle friendly edition of this book, as that what it is made out to be,  and not the wizard one, confused!

The Audiobook

I absolutely loved it! The best part was that they got Eddie Redmayne to narrate it! It was perfect. After hearing his voice as Newt in the movie it was just perfect to listen to it in his voice, it made it so much specialer! I also loved that they used sound effects behind Eddie’s voice when talking about most of the creatures. Sometimes the sounds where simply the sound of something creeping over the ground or the roars of dragons or the cries of birds, it was amazing! It added that little bit extra to the Audiobook that made is just perfect!

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Well that is all for this kinda odd and different review! If you haven’t already, go get your hands on either the physical or eBook editions or the Audiobook! You will not be disappointed!

Also check out J.K. Rowling’s charity Lumos to donate or find out more info!

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