BBC News is reporting that JK Rowling will be reading excerpts from the Tales of Beedle the Bard at a tea party at the National Library of Scotland, hosted by The Children’s High Level Group, the charity that Jo Rowling co-founded . The Party will take place on December 4, 2008, the same day that the Tales of Beedle the Bard hit the shelves.

Local school children will be invited to attend the special charity launch. Net proceeds from the sale of The Tales of Beedle the Bard will fund the charity’s work with vulnerable children across Eastern Europe. To celebrate the launch, children across the UK and those visiting from further afield, will get the opportunity to see one of only seven original copies of The Tales of Beedle the Bard on display at the National Library of Scotland.
The month-long Beedle display will take place from 5 December to 4 January….There will be the opportunity for 10 local schools to each bring up to 20 pupils, aged 8 to 11, to the Beedle tea party.
The tickets will be allocated through a random ballot, to be run by the Edinburgh Evening News, from Wednesday 5 November 2008.

So, what about children who aren’t “local school children?” Well, Schostic, the US publisher of the Harry Potter series has announced a children’s essay contest, with five grand prizes of trips for two to Jo’s Beedle the Bard tea party in Scotland.

In order to enter The Tales of Beedle the Bard essay contest, fans are asked to write an essay of 200 words or less describing how they have helped others.

Good luck to all of the children (or parents of children) who enter!!

We’re just back from Prophecy 2007. In short, we had a great time, came home and immediately sat down to recap . Between the amazing sessions, the vast array of Potter fans and the great discussions, it was a weekend to remember. Penny recapped day one and day two in two previous posts, with some great links to many of the amazing speakers we got to hear. Make sure to check them out, as well tune in to this episode to hear our thoughts.

No news for this episode, we’ll be back with a regular episode later this week.

You can listen to the podcast with the player below, or download an mp3 directly.

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If you’re going to the 12:01 screening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix at Baltimore’s historic Senator Theatre, keep an eye out for the HPProgs crew.  Penny and I will be sporting our brand new HPProgs t-shirts, passing out HPProgs bookmarks and interviewing folks standing in the line; we’ll post the video here just as soon as we can figure out how to get it off our camera.  If you’re an HPProgs listener, please say hello!
We’ll be seeing the movie sometime over the next day, and will have a podcast up with our review tomorrow night.