Rowling Visits U.S. in `Open Book Tour'

Author J.K. Rowling signs copies of "'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" for 1,600 public school children Monday, Oct. 15, 2007, at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles. Rowling is on tour to promote the seventh and final Harry Potter book. (AP Photo/Ric Francis) (Ric Francis - AP)

LOS ANGELES -- J.K. Rowling made a rare U.S. appearance, reading at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood in front of scores of wand-clutching would-be wizards and witches.

Seated on a gold throne with plush red cushions, Rowling read Monday from the seventh and final of her novels on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

She then took a dozen preselected questions from the dressed-up and dazzled kids and teens.

To accommodate a crushing demand for tickets, Rowling's American publisher sent a "sorting hat" like those used to divide students into houses in the novels to 40 randomly selected Los Angeles schools. Forty students from each school were then selected from the hat.

Rowling said the gimmick was meant to avoid the sort of madness she faced in a previous U.S. appearance.

"Things had gotten a little unmanageable signing-wise in the terms of the numbers who were turning up," she said, "but I really missed being able to interact directly with readers."

All 1,600 students received a signed copy of "Deathly Hallows."

Rowling, a former schoolteacher, took the stage to a thundering, shrieking ovation, then said: "It wasn't like this when I was a teacher. If it had been, I might never have left."

When inevitably asked what she might be writing next, Rowling said only that it would not be another supernatural epic.

"I think probably I've done my fantasy," she said. "I think because Harry's world was so large and detailed and I've known it so well and I've lived in it for 17 years, it would be incredibly difficult to go out and create another world."

The reading was part of a weeklong visit by Rowling to the states known as the "Open Book Tour."

She also makes stops in New Orleans on Thursday and at New York's Carnegie Hall on Friday.