J.K. Rowling’s new book ‘The Ickabog’ is available online for free

J.K. Rowling has released a new book titled “The Ickabog,” which is available online for free.

The Harry Potter author said she would be posting one or more chapters weekdays from May 26 until July 10 on The Ickabog’s official website.

On her website, Rowling said The Ickabog was “a story about truth and the abuse of power.”

Since the idea of the story came to her over a decade ago, the book “isn’t intended to be read as a response to anything that’s happening in the world right now,” she said.

“The themes are timeless and could apply to any era or any country,” she added.

The premise of The Ickabog came to the author while she was writing Harry Potter. “I wrote most of a first draft in fits and starts between Potter books, intending to publish it after ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.’” 

After the last Potter book, Rowling took a break from publishing for five years.

“In that time I wrote ‘The Casual Vacancy’ and Robert Galbraith wrote ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling.’ After some dithering (and also after my long-suffering agent had trademarked The Ickabog—sorry, Neil) I decided I wanted to step away from children’s books for a while,” she said.

The author said Ickabog’s first draft went up “into the attic where it’s remained for nearly a decade.”

She thought the story belonged to her two younger children, “because I’d read it to them in the evenings when they were little, which has always been a happy family memory.”

Rowling said it was only a few weeks ago during dinner when she thought of resurrecting the book and “publishing it for free for children in lockdown.”

Her children were enthusiastic about the idea so she brought book down, and in the last few weeks she had been “immersed in a fictional world I thought I’d never enter again.” 

With Ickabog, Rowling said she returned to the family’s old tradition of reading chapters to her children.

She said Ickabog was written as a read-aloud book but it’s also suitable for 7- to 9-year-olds to read by themselves.

Illustration competition

The author also encouraged readers of The Ickabog to create their own illustrations based on the story. This activity, she said, would be a good “distraction during the strange and difficult time we’re passing through.”

“There will be suggestions about the illustrations we might need for each chapter on The Ickabog website, but nobody should feel constrained by these ideas. I want to see imaginations run wild!” she added.

Rowling plans to publish the book in English on print, eBook, and audiobook formats in November 2020, and in other languages shortly after.

“The best drawings in each territory will be included in the finished books. As publishers in each territory will need to decide which pictures work best for their own editions, I won’t be personally judging the entries,” she noted.

She will also be pledging author royalties from The Ickabog once published “to help groups who’ve been particularly impacted by the pandemic. Further details will be available later in the year.” – RC, GMA News