HARRY Potter, the trainee wizard created by children’s author J K Rowling, has put young readers under a spell.
The Children’s Book Award, made every year to a title chosen from reports by 60,000 children, has gone to a Harry Potter tale for the second year running.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets won the overall prize and the longer novel category in the award, organised by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups, a charity which promotes books and reading.
Harry Potter has been brought up by miserable Muggles (non-wizards) but attends wizard school (Hogwarts), which is reached by trains from Platform 934 at King’s Cross station.
J K Rowling, who taught French in Edinburgh before she was discovered by Bloomsbury Children’s Books, has promised a book for each of Harry’s seven years at Hogwarts, Chamber of Secrets being the second.
Book three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, will arrive at bookshops on July 8, but children will be advised not to open them before 3.45pm (when Hogwarts breaks up for summer), to avoid a Harry Potter curse.
