JK Rowling has surprised fans with the announcement of a brand new children’s book, which she is publishing in daily instalments on her website for free. It’s for “children on lockdown, or even those back at school during these strange, unsettling times”, she said.
The Ickabog is her first children’s story not to be linked to Harry Potter. She wrote it over a decade ago for her own children and has now dusted it off.
She had previously referred to it only as an unnamed “political fairytale”.
Chapters of The Ickabog are being published daily until 10 July on The Ickabog website . The book will be published in November when J.K. Rowling will be going to donate all royalties to help people who have been affected by the coronavirus. Full details will come later in the year.
The first Chapters which went online on Tuesday, introduced King Fred the Fearless, ruler of Cornucopia, and five-year-old Bert Beamish.
Calling all the budding Artists, J.K. Rowling is inviting fan kids to help illustrate The Ickabog for her. Every day when chapters of the story are uploaded, she will be making suggestions for what you might like to draw or paint to illustrate the story as it goes along. You should let your imagination run wild, she says! The artwork must be entered by a parent or guardian, via the publisher’s own competition website in their country as mentioned on site – the publishers are going to be judging all the competition entries. Currently, only UK and US countries are mentioned.
Readers also learned about the myth of a fearsome monster called The Ickabog, which is “said to eat children and sheep”.
The author said she originally intended to release the story after the seventh and final Harry Potter novel came out in 2007.
But she decided to take a break from publishing, and put the manuscript in her attic.
At the time of this news release, already Ten Chapters are put on the J K Rowling Ickabog site. and Illustrations submitted by Kids are featured too.
So, Keep Calm, experience #joysofreading and Stay Safe.
