Hogwarts Textbooks

[linman6868 at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 28425

Hey, guys, sorry this is a week late, but I was kinda praying to the 
porcelain god on the night I was going to write it, and it took a while to 
get better.  But here goes -- Lisa

HOGWARTS TEXTBOOKS

Every year Hogwarts students receive book lists in the post, telling them 
which textbooks they will require for the year.  First years get the longest 
list, presumably because some of the books last them the whole seven-year 
course of their study.  Here is a list of all the books on lists, mentioned 
in the narrative, and deduced:

The Standard Book of Spells, Grades One through Seven, by Miranda Goshawk
A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot (This one MUST be thick, I expect it 
looks like the Nuremberg Chronicle, only with much smaller print.  I wonder 
how Harry managed to grab it from the cupboard so quickly!)
Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration (and successive levels) by Emeric Switch
One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phyllida Spore
Magical Drafts (I bet this is DRAUGHTS in the U.K.) and Potions by Arsenius 
Jigger
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them by Newt Scamander (I own this one!)
The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection by Quentin Trimble (If Mad-Eye 
Moody had written this book, it'd probably be reaallly thin and only consist 
of two words!)
The Monster Book of Monsters (author unknown)
Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky
Numerology and Gramatica (author unknown)
Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles (author unknown)
All those darn Lockhart books:  Break with a Banshee, Gadding with Ghouls, 
Holidays with Hags, Travels with Trolls (wouldn't want to be in a small car 
with one of those; how DID Lockhart do it??  Drive with the windows down?), 
Voyages with Vampires, Wanderings with Werewolves, Year with the Yeti
And of course we must include Hogwarts, A History, even though it's on no 
one's booklist (aka A REVISED History of Hogwarts, or A Highly Biased and 
SELECTIVE History of Hogwarts, Which Glosses Over the Nastier Aspects of the 
School) [personal note:  I have a funny story about the word "biased" which I 
will post to OTChatter after I finish with this]

USES OF BOOKS

Clearly, several of these books are used in more than one class.  The obvious 
relation between Potions and Herbology suggests that One Thousand Magical 
Herbs and Fungi will be used in both classes, as does Harry's thought of the 
book under Snape's questions in PS/SS.  Magical Theory would likely serve all 
classes, even Trelawney's, though I haven't seen her using it.  The Standard 
Book of Spells I assume is a Charms book, but I can see it being used in 
other classes as well.  (I can't imagine what kind of shelf you'd build to 
hold all seven; those books probably give a lot of torque.)  

Teachers, depending on their predilections, seem to use the books as 
reference books in classes that are mostly labs - with History of Magic being 
the least lab-like.  Students are expected to read their textbooks over the 
summer break, and before they come to school; second years and up are given 
essay assignments to finish over the summer months.  Unlike the students I've 
taught, Hogwarts students don't appear to have bibliotecaphobia; they head to 
the library to find supporting materials on their own steam, and they are 
successful.  Hermione may be the biggest library rat of Harry's year, but 
she's not alone in her initiative; none of them balk for lack of knowing 
where to start; they just go there and start searching.  They certainly turn 
up more than my students do on the average.

As Fantastic Beasts shows, students write in their books - and since they own 
them, why not?  They use them for pillows (like Hermione in PoA); they use 
them as threats (I certainly would; it would give "throw the book at him" a 
whole new meaning.)  They mend them (Ginny, GoF) or let them fall apart (Ron, 
FB); they lug them about (how DOES Hermione do that? but then, I did it in 
high school); they probably eat while using them and brush the crumbs out of 
the gutters; they load their trunks with them; and now and then they even 
consult them.  Probably they keep them all their life, like Muggle English 
majors do - or nursing students.

Questions:

1. If you were writing a wizarding textbook, what would yours be called, and 
what would your pen name be?  (You can write several; heck, Lockhart did.)

2. Do you suppose the Hogwarts textbooks are like ours nowadays, with chapter 
units and comprehension questions, and an annotated teachers' edition?  Or 
are they different?

3. How do you think the choosing process works at Hogwarts?  Obviously, 
Lockhart was able to demand that his students buy all his books, but surely 
other professors, such as Snape and Sprout, would have to coordinate their 
choices?  Does Dumbledore have a say in it?

4. Wizards seem to write their books based on field experience.  Are there 
fields in which one doesn't need experience to compile a textbook?



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