JK Rowling launches a new free book for “children on lockdown”
JK Rowling has announced a new children’s book, which she is publishing in daily instalments on her website for free.
The Ickabog, which she’s previously referred to as a “political fairytale”, was written over a decade ago for her own children and now she's sharing it with the world.
Chapters will be published daily up until 10 July, for “children on lockdown, or even those back at school during these strange, unsettling times,” explains Rowling.
“Over time I came to think of it as a story that belonged to my two younger children, because I’d read it to them in the evenings when they were little, which has always been a happy family memory,” she says on her website.
Rowling originally intended to release the story after the final Harry Potter novel in 2007, however she decided to take a break, so the manuscript was kept in her attic.
"My now teenagers were touchingly enthusiastic, so downstairs came the very dusty box, and for the last few weeks I've been immersed in a fictional world I thought I'd never enter again.
"As I worked to finish the book, I started reading chapters nightly to the family again.
"This was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my writing life, as The Ickabog's first two readers told me what they remember from when they were tiny, and demanded the reinstatement of bits they'd particularly liked (I obeyed)."
Over time I came to think of The Ickabog as just for my family. The manuscript went up into the attic, where it remained until a few weeks ago.
This is the very dusty box I got down from the attic.
(It's a Net-A-Porter box and might well have held a premiere dress.)
4/13 pic.twitter.com/vg8F5Qx33M— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 26, 2020
The book marks the first children’s story of Rowling’s that’s unlinked to Harry Potter. The Ickabog is written to be read out-loud and is suitable for children between the ages of seven and nine.
It will be published as a physical book in November, with all author royalties being donated to groups who've been particularly impacted by the pandemic, according to the BBC.
Rowling is also calling on young readers to draw their own illustrations, with the best ones to be included in the published books.
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