A 10-year-old Harry Potter-like teen has made himself famous by writing stories like Harry Potter's.

Bian Jinyang, a Junior 1 student at Dalian No 40 Middle School, has put out two of his own fantasy books, "Shiguang Moqin" and "Qinren Buluo". The first book has sold more than 120,000 copies in China! A third one, "Touzhong Jiaoqing", will be out soon.

"The language is funny. I like it best because it has things you could never think of!" said Xi Nide, a middle school student from Inner Mongolia.

Stories full of magic

Like the Harry Potter stories, Bian's stories are about magic. But they do not take place in a magic school. They may happen in any corner of the world, or even in outer space! In "Qinren Buluo," Emperor Qin Shihuang sends 1,000 boys and girls to Japan, but aliens take them to another planet. Then a kid tries to take them back to Earth. Bian put himself and his parents into the story, too.

"People say I don't have experience in life because I'm young," he said. "They're right. That's why I can write stories like these. I can imagine things grown-ups can't!"

He started to write after his father gave him some Harry Potter books two years ago.

Bian is a very naughty boy. He doesn't like to sit still and often plays football and computer games! But when he begins to write, he can stay quiet for hours.

He also likes reading very much. There are over 10,000 books in his home, because both of his parents are writers. "Reading gives me ideas for writing," he said. "The more books I read, the more exercise my mind gets." He writes quickly for a kid, often up to 10,000 words in a day.

A US company has given Bian US$150,000 for the rights to put out his first book in English in America. It was put out in Korean last year, and it will soon come out in Japanese, too.

(21stcentury.com.cn June 25, 2004)