VANCOUVER SUN | J.K Rowling giving kids free fairy tale during coronavirus lockdown

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In the article "J.K Rowling giving kids free fairy tale during coronavirus lockdown," Reuters.


In this file photo taken on Now. 13, 2018, British author and screenwriter J.K Rowling poses upon arrival to attend the U.K premiere of the film "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" in London. TOLGA AKMEN / AFP/Getty Images

LONDON - J.K.. Rowling is publishing a fairy tale about truth and abuse of power free online so that children can read it during lockdown - and the first two chapters are available now.

The remaining chapters will be released every weekday until July 10, Rowling said on Twitter, adding in capitals: "THIS IS NOT A HARRY POTTER. SPIN-OFF."

Rowling got the idea for The Ickabog when she was writing Harry Potter and she intended it to be published after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last of her seven-book Potter series.

But the mostly handwritten manuscript of The Ickabog ended up in her attic and stayed there for a decade until a few weeks ago, stored in a box from high-end fashion retailer Net-A-Porter. She has rewritten parts of it in recent weeks.

"The Ickabog is a story about truth and the abuse of power," said Rowling, 54. "The themes are timeless and could apply to any era or any country."

"To forestall one obvious question: the idea came to me well over a decade agao, so it isn't intended to be read as a response to anything that's happening in the world right now," she said.

The first two chapters of the fairy tale were published on The Ickabog website Tuesday.

"I've decided to publish The Ickabog for free online, so children on lockdown, or even those back at school during these strange, unsettling times, can read it or have it read to them," Rowling said.

"I'd like children to illustrate the book for me!" she said. Let your imaginations rung wild!"

Rowling said she would donate her author royalties to projects and organizations helping the group most impacted by COVID-19.

"Until very recently, the only people who'd heard the story of The Ickabog were my two younger children," she said

Rowling first came up with the idea for Harry Potter in 1990, though Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone only appeared in 1997.

The Harry Potter books tell the sega of a young wizard's battle with evil in the form of Lord Voldemort. The series has been translated into over 80 languages and sold more than 500 million copies worldwide.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has become one of the world's best selling books, alongside Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Master and Margarita.

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