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Released on Thursday 4th December 2008, this spin-off from the Harry Potter series is an ideal present for children. It’s cheap, will make them sit down and read on Christmas day and you can then steal it and read it for yourself!

Containing clues that were to prove crucial to Harry Potter’s final mission to destroy Lord Voldemort’s Horcruxes, The Tales of Beedle the Bard is the volume of five wizarding fairy tales left to Hermione Granger by Albus Dumbledore in the seventh and final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Only one – The Tale of the Three Brothers – is recounted in the book. In The Tales of Beedle the Bard, the four remaining stories are revealed for the very first time. At only £5.99 from Play it’s not only a bargain, but the proceeds also go to a great charity. Click here to buy from Play.com.

Money from the publication of the book will go to the Children’s High Level Group (CHLG), the English charity co-founded by J K Rowling and Emma Nicholson MEP to help children suffering in institutions.

The book was first available in a series of seven handwritten, personally illustrated and specially bound books by J K Rowling. Six of the seven special books were given as presents to people who really helped JK Rowling on her rise to success. Last December, Amazon famously bid £1.95 million / $4 million for the seventh charity copy at Sotheby’s in London.

The Children’s High Level Group will publish three editions of the book, all in the English language, to be printed and distributed by Bloomsbury, Scholastic and Amazon. The Bloomsbury and Scholastic editions (£6.99 / $12.99) will feature additional commentary on each fairy tale from Professor Dumbledore and an introduction by J K Rowling. Amazon will produce up to a maximum of 100,000 Collector’s Edition copies (£50 / $100), which will aim to closely replicate the look and feel of the original ‘Beedle’. All editions will go on sale on Thursday 4 December 2008.

Click here to buy the collector’s edition from Amazon UK
Click here to buy the collector’s edition from Amazon US

All net proceeds from the sale of the books – expected to be in the region of £4 million / $8 million – will be donated to CHLG.

The charity works to make life better for vulnerable children across Europe, where over a million children and teenagers are growing up in unacceptable conditions in large residential institutions. In most cases they are without adequate human or emotional contact and stimulation, while many only just survive without life’s basics such as adequate shelter and food.

Emma Nicholson says: “We are so thrilled to be publishing such an exclusive and special book. This unique project will raise vital funds for the work of CHLG, to help us change the lives of hundreds of thousands of marginalised and institutionalised children who are living in appalling conditions, and make sure that no future generation suffers in this way.”

J K Rowling says: “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.”

Click here to buy the standard edition from Play.com £5.99
Click here to buy the standard edition from Blackwell £6.99
Click here to buy the standard edition from Foyles £6.99