SPOILER WARNING!
Death has always been a major theme with JK Rowling, both in her personal life (her mother's) and in her Harry Potter series (the death of Harry's parents).
And so it is in Tales of Beadle the Bard, her collection of fairy tales for the wizarding children. My favourites are the Fountain of Fair Fortune and the Tale of the Three Brothers /familiar from the Deathly Hallows, but as good as ever/.
The Fountain deals with the perennial quest of happiness and the mistaken idea that it comes from the outside and not from one's inner self and that there's a panaecea that can solve all your problems.
The Three Brothers is a tale of escaping death. The morale is that it can't be escaped, let alone be outwitted; the best one can hope for is to delay it as long as possible so as to have time to lead a rich and fulfiling life.
This story isn't as scary as it sounds, though. The most scary for me was the one about the Warlock's Hairy Heart. The images are pretty gruesome; cutting out heats, shrivelling hearts, etc. Hardly looks like a children's story, but then JK Rowling's belief is that children should meet serious stuff as early as possible in books so that they are prepared for it in real life.
The best thing about the book is Dumbledore's commentary. I expected less but they are quite detailed covering the possible origins of the tales, their morale, various historical notes, etc. Some are quite fun, the quirkiness of Dumbledore shines through:)
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