‘Harry Potter At Home’ Initiative Opens The world of Magic To Everyone
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.
-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.
The ‘Harry Potter At Home’ hub is an online space for younger children (not limited to. Mom and dad can also have fun figuring out their Hogwarts house) 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 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 is making 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
‘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.
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.’
The three new ‘Harry Potter At Home’ initiatives announced on Wednesday follows 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 respective websites.
