The Sorcerer's Apprentice: An Anthology of Magical Tales

Editor Zipes (German & comparative literature emeritus, Univ. of Minnesota) starts with an examination of the Harry Potter novels as fairy tales, set squarely within the "magician and his pupil" fairy-tale type. He then explains the ways in which the Harry Potter phenomenon is not phenomenal, as the root of the stories' tropes extend through time and around the world. The preface references Elisabeth Young-Bruehl's Childism: Confronting Prejudice Against Children, then explains how commodification has corrupted the magician-pupil tale type and obscured the lessons it can teach about child abuse and exploitation, framing the book as a way to correct the record. This correction begins, again, with Harry Potter, explaining how the series' success rested equally on its novelty and its conformity—asserting that the innovation of a modern-day wizarding school succeeded primarily by building on a long tradition of tales. Following the preface is a comprehensive anthology of those same tales, divided into three subcategories and arranged chronologically within the groups. Also of note are artist Frank's gorgeous illustrations, marking her second collaboration with Zipes (after Natalie Frank: Tales of the Brothers Grimm, which contained essays by Zipes, among others).