Quidditch Through the Ages is a Nice Bit of Light Reading

I spent the first half of this year in eager anticipation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which included re-reading the first six books in the series and any supplementary material I could get my hands on. So when I happened upon Kennilworthy Whisp's Quidditch Through the Ages at a library book sale, I snatched it right up. Several years ago, the book came out alongside Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them. I should have bought the two together, but I only purchased one, and afterward I could only find them as a double set. Now my collection is complete.

Quidditch is a small book J. K. Rowling wrote to benefit the British charity Comic Relief. Like Magical Beasts, it is presented as a replica of a book consulted by Harry and his friends, though while that book is actually one of their school books and as such contains commentary by Harry and Ron in the margins, Quidditch is the property of the Hogwarts library.

The notion that this book is housed in the library is slightly eyebrow-raising, since it is so short on pages and my impression has always been that just about every book in that school is hefty. When Harry takes this particular book out in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, it seems as though he pores over it at length, but with fewer than 60 pages, there's really not that much to examine. Moreover, I find the list of names and check-out dates in the front of the book a tad perplexing, since Cedric Diggory, Angelina Johnson, Ernie Macmillan and Terry Boot all seem to have checked the book out while school was out of session. How did they get back to Hogwarts and into the library? Doesn't that seem like an awful lot of trouble to go to for one measly book that, if it's as popular as it seems to be, must be available somewhere a little closer to home?

That said, this is a fun little volume celebrating Rowling's wildly imaginative fictional game. Praised by a number of famed witches and wizards including Bathilda Bagshot ("a veritable treasure trove of hitherto unknown facts about the sport of warlocks"), Gilderoy Lockhart ("he may well find himself sharing a photoshoot with me one of these days"), Ludo Bagman ("bet you anything it'll be a best-seller") and Rita Skeeter ("I've read worse") and prefaced by the venerable Albus Dumbledore, who wittily recounts his troubles in securing the book from the strict Madam Pince and provides some background on the charity whose efforts its publication supports, it offers a look at the history of the sport and some of its most notable figures.

While Magical Creatures is full of illustrations, Quidditch boasts only a few, the most interesting of which, for me, is a drawing of the Golden Snidget, whose addition to the game some two hundred years after its invention drastically changed it. While getting balls into baskets was still important and avoiding getting pummeled was crucial, suddenly the game's primary focus was on catching this tiny bird, a rather distasteful affair that nearly led to its extinction. Hence, the creation of the Golden Snitch, a mechanical approximation. I liked the environmental message in this section of the book as well as the explanation for how such an unusual element was introduced to the game.

Other changes to the game are chronicled, and we get a glimpse of different broomstick-related games that never quite took off as well as the various broomstick models. There is a discussion of how the game has been hidden from curious Muggles, an increasingly difficult task that at one point led the Wizards' Council, a precursor to the Ministry of Magic, to declare that Quidditch mustn't be played "anywhere near any place where there is the slightest chance that a Muggle might be watching." While this rule was relaxed somewhat, Quidditch does seem to have historically caused the Council and Ministry major headaches.

Also included in the book are descriptions of each of the major Quidditch teams, including the notoriously hopeless Chudley Cannons, the revered Puddlemere United and witch-only Holyhead Harpies, among many others. Each of the teams from the British Isles merits a paragraph, while teams from elsewhere in the world are mentioned more briefly. Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of creative, alliterative names and amusing anecdotes. There's even a brief excerpt of a play entitled Alas, I've Transfigured My Feet.

Quidditch enthusiasts will want this for their own library, and at four dollars - eight if you include Magical Creatures, which may be your easiest way of getting the book, and I'd recommend that one first anyway - it won't break the bank. It won't break your back, either, if you slip it in a book bag; unlike Hogwarts, A History, Quidditch Through the Ages really is light reading, so pick up a copy and take flight.