5:52:00 PM
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(London, England) – J.K. Rowling and her Wizarding World partners
have announced three new initiatives under the banner Harry Potter At
Home, to help children, parents, carers and teachers confined at home
during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Photo: Daniel Ogren
The first initiative – a new digital hub packed with information and
activities for children, parents and carers – will be hosted on
WizardingWorld.com. Then throughout the month of April, partnerships
with Audible and OverDrive will allow families to access free audiobooks
and eBooks of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” Meanwhile,
the print publishers of Harry Potter, Bloomsbury and Scholastic, are
also supporting the effort. Full details of all the Harry Potter At Home
initiatives are published today on www.harrypotterathome.com.
J.K. Rowling said:
“The teachers, parents and carers working to keep children’s lives as
normal and happy as possible while we’re all on lockdown deserve a bit
of magic. I hope these initiatives will give children and even adults a
happy distraction during their enforced stay-at-home time.”
Neil Blair, founder of J.K. Rowling’s agency, The Blair Partnership, said:
“The Harry Potter books have always been a refuge, comfort and escape
for readers, and right now, we need reading for pleasure more than
ever. Many households will already have a Harry Potter book at home, but
I’m delighted that we can now provide free online access to the audio
and eBook of the first book in the series, through Audible and
libraries, for all to enjoy, as well as a fantastic new digital hub for
families with younger children to help them through these difficult
times.”
The Harry Potter At Home hub will be an online space for younger
children to discover the magic of Harry Potter – either on their own, or
reading and listening together with parents, carers and loved ones.
Wizarding Wednesdays on the hub and on social media will, each week,
provide a wealth of creative and craft activities, quizzes and fun
things to do for parents and carers, and a regular email newsletter will
bring fresh ideas into their inboxes each Friday. The hub is live at www.harrypotterathome.com.
Supporting the Harry Potter At Home effort is Audible, the world’s
largest producer and provider of original spoken-word entertainment and
audiobooks. Audible is making the audiobook of “Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone” free as part of its newly-launched Audible Stories
collection, allowing children everywhere to stream it instantly for
free in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German and Japanese.
Listeners will be able to access the audiobook on their desktop, laptop,
phone or tablet, without joining or logging into Audible. The English
language version will be performed by Stephen Fry, in both the UK and,
for the first time, in North America. Meanwhile, if families are already
Audible members, they can also listen, for free, to the newly released
audiobook of J.K. Rowling’s “The Tales of Beedle the Bard,” narrated by
stars of the Wizarding World from Noma Dumezweni to Jude Law.
Thanks to a Harry Potter At Home collaboration with digital library
supplier OverDrive, library members worldwide are also able to borrow
the first book in the series free of charge during the month of April.
Patrons of OverDrive’s network of public and school libraries worldwide
will have unlimited access to the eBook and audiobook in a selection of
over 20 different languages, until 30th April.
The three new Harry Potter At Home initiatives announced today follow
the announcement on March 20 that J.K. Rowling has granted a temporary
Open Licence to allow teachers to record and post videos of themselves
reading the Harry Potter books aloud to their classes on school
networks. The Open Licence has already been taken up widely by teachers
in the USA, UK and further afield, and is running until July 30 or the
end of the school year, whichever is sooner.
Bloomsbury and Scholastic, print publishers of Harry Potter in the UK
and USA, are also supporting Harry Potter At Home by offering a range
of resources for children, parents and educators online both on www.harrypotterathome.com and on their own websites – links for these are in Notes to Editors below.
Further exciting initiatives for Harry Potter At Home are currently in development and will be announced in due course.
