[Applause] no one could have predicted the spell
that Harry Potter would cast over the world the first book the story of a
young wizard and his friends was initially rejected by publishers but
readers were addicted and Harry Potter is now the most successful children's
book series of all time it made reading cool again he hated the summer holidays more than any other time
of year it was just great to see young people coming in and getting into
something that had been quite a niche market before and all of a sudden it's
not geeky and weird to be the kid at school who thinks witches might be real
or magic might be real all of a sudden all the kids think that and it's the new
new thing to be into which is just really refreshing here at Kings Cross
station Harry Potter boarded the train to Hogwarts 20 years ago and took the
story of good and evil and the power of magic around the world today book sales
of 500 million film franchise nine billion dollars but more importantly Harry's story changed the lives of
millions of muggles Maryna is on a harry potter pilgrimage from brazil the first
book came out ten days before she was born
i was dealing with depression and i had just moved to a different country so everything was new and I didn't have any
friends and Harry Potter was just there for me so and I learned a lot about you
know love and friendship and fighting for what you believe in and what is right and never giving up and just you
know it just helped me so much really very hard time with my life JK Rowling was a single mother when she started
writing the philosopher's stone in a cafe in Edinburgh she created characters that readers could grow up with each
book more sophisticated than the last dealing with issues from tolerance to
political activism no one could have predicted the devotion of Harry Potter
fans the level of excitement around the launch of a new book or film there's a
message for readers whatever their age they'll always have a home that Charlie Angela al-jazeera London