I have had requests to reduce the header in size as it was taking too long to load. I made a smaller one; and I also created a new design based on the original.
Also, don't forget that the book comes out in 9 days, on December the 4th, and will benefit The Children's High Level Group, a very important cause. Click here to read stories of children whose lives improved to a point which they believed impossible, because of this movement.
J.K. Rowling chose her favourite part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which she says that it may possibly be her favourite part of the entire series, and wrote about it in Prince Charles' Birthday Book for his 60th birthday.
Here's a little of what she wrote:
"The destinies of wizards and princes might seem more certain than those carved out for the rest of us, yet we all have to choose the manner in which we meet life: whether to live up (or down) to the expectations placed upon us; whether to act selfishly, or for the common good; whether to steer the course of our lives ourselves, or to allow ourselves to be buffeted around by chance and circumstance. Birthdays are often moments for reflection, moments when we pause, look around, and take stock of where we are; children gleefully contemplate how far they have come, whereas adults look forwards into the trees, wondering how much further they have to go. This extract from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is my favourite part of the seventh book; it might even be my favourite part of the entire series, and in it, Harry demonstrates his truly heroic nature, because he overcomes his own terror to protect the people he loves from death, and the whole of his society from tyranny."
View the Guardian's report here.The book can be purchased and the royalties will go to Prince Charles' Foundation for Children and the Arts.
A new Half-Blood Prince International Teaser Trailer has surfaced online this morning! It features some exciting new scenes and dialogue that was not present in the last two trailers.
The front cover of Scholastic's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Special Anniversary Edition paperback has surfaced online! The illustration by Mary GranPre depicts Harry, Mr. Ollivander and Hagrid in Ollivander's Wand Shop.
Andrews McMeel Publishing, the US publisher of the 2009 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince calendar, has released several new images from this year's edition:
Daniel Radcliffe is featured in the latest edition of the American Vogue Magazine. In it, he talks about his role of Alan Strang in Peter Shaffer's very serious play "Equus", the play which met great success last year in London, and which is soon to be played on Broadway.
He says: “I think that everyone has got more in common with Alan than they would like to admit. I’ve never put out a bunch of horse’s eyes of course - but you turn to your own emotions-the sadness, the anger, the loneliness-and just explode them.”
It's here! The site's exclusive new toolbar that accompanies you wherever you are on the web.
Now you can carry your Patronus-Messenger everywhere with you on the web, and enjoy features like: - An RSS News Feed to deliver you Harry Potter news in an instant; - A Patronus-Messenger Google Search tool; - Access to the site's chat, which is only available to owners of the toolbar; - Protection from pop-ups; - And a link to Patronus-Messenger, so that you can apparate back here whenever you feel like it.
To curb our sadness, Entertainment Weekly has new images from Half-Blood Prince, which is now scheduled to be released next July. There are also page scans from EW's Half-Blood Prince set report.
You may have checked the date already after reading the headline, but no, it is not April the 1st.
Warner Brothers has just announced that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will not be released until next summer, on July 17th.
Mr. Alan Horn, President of WB, stated:
"Our reasons for shifting ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to summer are twofold: we know the summer season is an ideal window for a family tent pole release, as proven by the success of our last Harry Potter film, which is the second-highest grossing film in the franchise, behind only the first installment. Additionally, like every other studio, we are still feeling the repercussions of the writers’ strike, which impacted the readiness of scripts for other films—changing the competitive landscape for 2009 and offering new windows of opportunity that we wanted to take advantage of. We agreed the best strategy was to move ‘Half-Blood Prince’ to July, where it perfectly fills the gap for a major tent pole release for mid-summer."
He also said:
"Warner currently is riding high with "The Dark Knight," the Batman film that also stars Bale. The grim super-hero movie has taken in $452 million in the U.S. since its July 18 release, making it the second-highest grossing film ever.
To some degree, that success motivated Warner to shift "Half-Blood Prince," Horn said. The film will now hit theaters the same midsummer weekend that "Dark Knight" was released this year. Horn said the young, core Potter audience would be out of school and give the film a longer theatrical life. It will now open opposite Universal's special-effects comedy "Land of the Lost," which stars Will Ferrell. But Horn said there was nothing next year compared to this summer's especially dense slate of big-budget releases." Mr. Horn finally said: "We would never do anything to hurt one of the movies or the series. We love our fans."
It's her and Harry's birthday, but J.K. Rowling is giving us and charity a very special gift.
This morning, Scholastic announced that Jo's children's charity, the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), will be publishing The Tales of Beedle the Bard !
Jo said: "There was understandable disappointment among Harry Potter fans when only one copy of The Tales of Beedle the Bard was offered to the public last December. I am therefore delighted to announce that, thanks to the generous support of Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Amazon (who bought the handwritten copy at auction) – and with the blessing of the wonderful people who own the other six original books - The Tales of Beedle the Bard will now be widely available to all Harry Potter fans. Royalties will be donated to the Children’s High Level Group, to benefit institutionalised children in desperate need of a voice. The new edition will include the Tales themselves, translated from the original runes by Hermione Granger, and with illustrations by me, but also notes by Professor Albus Dumbledore, which appear by generous permission of the Hogwarts Headmasters’ Archive."
Scholastic predicts the books will generate around $8 million in sales; money which will of course be going to CHLG and unprotected and powerless children and teenagers around the world which live in unacceptable conditions and institutions all over Europe.
Complete with Google Search, link to P-M, RSS Harry Potter News from our site, pop-up blockers for safe browsing and even chat for our exclusive toolbar users ! Also: a large variety of gadgets available (which you can easily get after installing the toolbar), including a YouTube mini-feed, iTunes, Yahoo! Music Top 10, and much, much more!