I searched the archives, and couldn't find any answer to this, so I opened this thread.

I bought Harry Potter 6 (half blood prince), and started reading the other day. I noticed some fine print in the binding (where pages get glued to the hardcover) between pages 32 and 33. The text says:

"Believe - children can --- 2 of 19"

What is this supposed to mean? Is this a religious message "hidden" in the book? Is this some sort of secret message in the book? I looked quickly in the binding of the other pages, and couldn't find any more messages. Oh yes, for the record, this is purchased at a retail store in Canada, so it could be specific from the Canadian publisher.

Anybody seen anything like this before? If you are interested, I could make a scan of the page, and put it online (maybe I'll have problems with copyright doing this though)...

It means you should believe. It is real easy after all children do it all the time. So believe or they'll kill you. The children of the corn will rise up and kill the nonbelievers. The Potter is Harry. The Potter sees all and knows all. You must believe in the Potter or else.

Enlightning.

No, seriously, is my book the only one which has this?
Can I therefore sell it on Ebay for [austin powers] one million dollars [/austin powers]?

My Canadian version doesn't have it

Nothing in mine (USA Version).

Andrew

You've got the GOLDEN TICKET!!!

Let us know what J.K. Rowling's factory looks like.

Andrew

World Domination Plan
Step 1: Create noticeable gap between pages 32 and 33 of all HP6 books in North America

Nothing in the binding of mine, but besides the juice stains, bent pages, and severely warped last third of text from when I dropped the book in the pool, I've added another memory to the book!

Nothing in mine.

mine doesn't have it. Very interesting though.

I found $100 between pages 113 and 114 in mine.

I've also got a Canadian edition from the first print, and it has "Believe Children Can 7 of 19" between pages 192-193.

Haven't found out what it means yet, but there you are!

You're one of 19 winners to the $1MM find Harry Potter prize. The bad news is that the last day for entries was June 31, 2006.

If I had to guess, I would suggest that what you're seeing are the codings for the separate signatures that make up the book...

No, that's not going to help.

Okay, a book, typically, is bound in groups of pages, called signatures. 16 sheets, folded in half, yielding 32 pages, which are placed in order and stitched or otherwise attached to the binding (if you look at the top or bottom of the book, along the binding, you'll probably be able to see the series of ridges that are the folded/stitched edges of these signatures).

Okay, so Half-Blood Prince is, in the CDN edition, 608 pages long -- that's 19 signatures. Page 33 would be the first page of the second signature (ie, 2 of 19 -- page 193 would be the first page of the seventh signature, ie 7 of 19). I'm guessing that the CAN refers to the fact that this is the Canadian edition, and, strictly guessing now, the Believe Children might be an in-house codename for the book when it was going through the printing process.

Maybe.

Probably right. My guess would be the "Children" part refers to the type of book it is (Children's literature), the "Can" is defnitely for Canada, and "Believe" was probably the codename for the manuscript.

The "children" might also have been to distinguish between the print runs for the adult edition and the children's edition.

It only took two and half years, but I'm glad we've finally solved the mystery of Believe Children Can.

I got here as quick as I could!