'Harry Potter' author J K Rowling releases new children's book 'The Ickabog'

'Harry Potter' writer JK Rowling has surprised fans with the announcement of a new children's book called 'The Ickabog', which she is publishing in daily installments on her website for free.

'The Ickabog' is her first children's story not to be linked to 'Harry Potter'. She wrote it over a decade ago for her own children and has now dusted it off.

The writer is keen to emphasise that the new story is not a 'Harry Potter' spin-off, but a "stand-alone fairy tale," she wrote on Twitter Tuesday.

It's for "children on lockdown, or even those back at school during these strange, unsettling times", she added.

She had previously referred to it only as an unnamed "political fairytale".

She started writing "The Ickabog" while she was still completing the original Wizarding World series, and intended to publish it following the seventh -- and final -- "Harry Potter" book.