J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series has been taking the children's book
world by storm.  In the latest in the series, _Harry Potter and the
Prisoner of Azkaban_, ferrets get a mention.  But not in a very positive
way!
 
Harry and his friends are at school at Hogwarts, where they are learning
to be wizards and witches.  The school gamekeeper likes exotic mystical
beasts.  At one point Harry and his friends arrive at the gamekeeper's
cottage when the gamekeeper has just fed his hippogriff (half eagle, half
horse) a large plate of dead ferrets!  Yuck!  And at another point in the
book the gamekeeper is swinging a dead polecat by the tail.
 
These are actually very good books, even if Rowling is not particularly
mustelid sympathetic.
 
Kylie
[Posted in FML issue 2805]