No one knows when the next Harry Potter book will be out. Sorry about that, as Harry would say, but it appears very unlikely to see print before early 2002. It's name is reputed to be Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix.

    That is the somewhat dispiriting news I have been breaking to the stream of Children who have been coming in every day wanting to know when the longed for event will transpire. There is some material consolation available however. This consolation takes the form of two of Harry's textbooks come to life, Quidditch Through The Ages, by Kennilworthy Whisp, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, by Newt Scamander.

    These small paperbacks were written by J.K. Rowling herself, and all proceeds from their sale go to a children's charity, Comic Relief U.K. The books, both of which include a preface by Hogwarts Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, are presented as a special edition for Muggles, a joint venture in fact between two different wizarding publishing houses and muggle publisher Scholastic Press. Prices are given accordingly in both dollars and sickles.

    The books, though small, are, like a bowl of fresh fruit or raw seal blubber to a nineteenth century explorer suffering from scurvy, a very considerable solace to those readers suffering from a want of fresh Harry Potter.

    Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a reproduction of Harry's own copy, and includes hand written notes and comments from Harry, Ron and Hermione. Though primarily a bestiary, and a very entertaining one, the What is a Beast section also provides interesting insights into Wizarding politics and history. My only quibble with the book is that the term used for the study of magical beasts, magizoology, lands a bit awkwardly on the page. Rowlings' term for Wizard math, Arithmancy, is much more like it.

    Quidditch through the Ages is great fun. Chapters such as Ancient Broom Games, The Arrival of the Golden Snitch, and Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland, are sure to delight all and sundry.

    At times the books become a bit too allegorical. Quidditch Through The Ages reveals, for example, that "The United States has not produced as many world class Quidditch teams as other nations because the game has had to compete with the American broom game of Quodpot. And further, that Quodpot, unlike Quidditch, has "eleven players a side." The analogy drawn between European and American football and European and American Quidditch is a good deal too obvious to give the reader much pleasure.