To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the US debut of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, publisher Scholastic is hosting “Harry Potter Cover to Cover Day.” Fans will be able to participate at Scholastic’s New York headquarters, taking a turn reading from the book while sitting in the throne J.K. Rowling used in her Radio City Music Hall (2005) and Carnegie Hall (2007) appearances (see picture at right).
The reading will start at 8AM on 23 September at Scholastic’s headquarters, 557 Broadway (between Prince and Spring Streets) in Manhattan, New York. It will run “until the last page is read.” And to let fans outside New York participate, the whole thing will be webcast at www.scholastic.com/readharry. Each fan who participates (that is, takes a seat on the throne and reads) will “receive a special commemorative Harry Potter anniversary souvenir,” and “the first 100 fans to read will receive a free copy of the special anniversary edition of the book.”
Announcing the event, Scholastic Trade Books President Ellie Berger said “We are thrilled to celebrate the first decade of Harry Potter’s magical influence on books and reading, right here at Scholastic headquarters. What makes this anniversary special is seeing readers who have grown up with Harry celebrating alongside a new generation of readers who will just be beginning their Hogwarts journey.” Beloit College, in its “Mindset List for the Class of 2012”, notes that for this year’s college freshmen, “Harry Potter could be a classmate, playing on their Quidditch team.” That fact, indeed, ranks #1 on the annual list of 60.
The $30 new edition (pictured here) will go on sale on that same day, and features “exclusive bonus material from Rowlin, as well as new cover art and a four-color frontispiece by Mary GrandPré.”
Scholastic says “there are currently 28 million copies of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in print in the US alone, and 400 million copies of the seven books in the Harry POtter series have sold worldwide in 65 languages.”