Bibliofemme News
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16/05/2005
Children invited to Harry Potter launch
JK Rowling announced on Saturday that she will give a midnight reading of her new book to coincide with its publication. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth installment in the series about the boy wizard will be unveiled at the stroke of midnight in Edinburgh Castle on the 16th July.
JK Rowling said on her web site that newspapers and bookshops in six countries will choose 70 children between ages 8 and 16 who aspire to be journalists to go to Edinburgh for the reading of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.
Each child will be given a signed copy of the book which they can read, in a specially created Reading Room at Edinburgh Castle, before attending the Children's Press Conference on Sunday 17th.
On the Saturday evening the lucky winners will attend a Hogwarts-style banquet. On the Sunday, the winners will then have the opportunity to be cub reporters and question Rowling, in what the author has promised will be the book`s only press conference.
Some 250 million Harry Potter books have been sold around the world, with 13.5 million copies sold in the UK.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix became one of the fastest-selling books in publishing history in 2003.
Industry experts expect sales of the latest book to shatter all previous Harry Potter sales.
Newspapers from Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada will run competitions from 14th May onwards to select their own reporter. Bookshops and libraries in the UK and Republic of Ireland will also be running a competition.
For more details on how to become one of the reporters at Edinburgh Castle on 16th July go to www.bloomsbury.com/harrypotter.
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