A Review Of The Creature Vault From The Harry Potter Universe

Post date: Feb 25, 2016 1:18:58 PM

My birthday is around the corner. My family believes in either being early or on time with birthday gifts. I already gushed about the awesome birthday gift papa gave me. But yesterday, the gift from my brother, arrived by courier.

My older daughter, whose antics you have all heard so much about, can't wait to open packages. Her birthday is a few days after mine. So she was hoping this was her gift from mamaji. But her gifts from mamaji always arrive in her name, and this one was clearly addressed to me. With almost as much excitement as my daughter opens her gifts, I tore open this mysterious package. Either she inherited the package opening enthusiasm from me, or I never grew up. The later is probably more likely ;) Okay so the package is finally open, and this is what I see:

Hooray! Oh, did I forget to mention what a huge Harry Potter fan I am? Especially of the first 3 books in the series. Those are brilliant and I have lost count of how many times I have read them. Over the years, my brother and I have had many occasions to discuss these books that we read at the same time. In fact, just recently, we were discussing one of the Harry Potter books for some reason. That is when it probably occurred to him, that this would be a great gift for me. I have also been dying to introduce my daughter to the series, but I think she is still a little too young to follow the intricate plot lines. May be I am wrong ...

Now this book that my brother sent me, is not one that I would have bought. It is quite expensive and has no story at all. I already know all I want to about the creatures and if I wanted to know more, I only have to google.

So, why then was I so excited? Because it suddenly occurred to me that, although my brother had intended this to be a gift for me thinking it was an auxiliary story in the Potterverse like 'The Tales Of Beedle The Bard' or the new script of the play that is soon to come, it was an excellent combined birthday gift for my daughter and me.

Here is how:

The book is hardbound and feels like a treasure. It is full of fabulous illustrations of the fantastic creatures from Potterverse and interesting factoids about them.

What are these fantastic creatures? What magical properties do they have? How were they made for the movies? Which movie did they appear in?

It covers the creatures from the forbidden forest and the Hogwarts lake, as well as other fantastic beings like goblins, garden gnomes, house elves, shape shifters (animagi and werewolves) and pets belonging to the various characters. There is a section on magical plants from the Potterverse too.

While little in the book was new to me, my daughter was fascinated. She loved the pictures and wanted to know more about centaurs and unicorns and those naughty cornish pixies. We spent a while looking at the pictures together and I tried to explain the role of each in the story. She wanted to know which ones were good and which were bad and which were friendly and which were scary. I think this is an excellent book to get kids interested in the Harry Potter series, so when they start with the series the world is familiar to them. It works as a stepping stone for tiny tots to the Potterverse.

My daughter is already asking to watch the first Harry Potter movie. I thought we would give it a try as soon as we got through the book. But my daughter was one step ahead of me. She has made the birthday plans for my birthday. Talk about bossy! I guess we are eating Japanese food at Kofuku and then watching the first Harry Potter movie. Well, I can't really complain. I could not have come up with a better birthday plan :) And at the rate she is getting through the book, we will definitely be done with it, before my birthday on Saturday.

PS. My brother had indeed thought that it was a story in Potterverse, but it all turned out great and we are all happy :)