Single mother is a rival for Rowling's crown with pounds 1m

A SINGLE mother, who made her name writing the adventures of a former belly dancer, has teamed up with her 10-year-old daughter to win a pounds 1million book deal for a story publishers hope will be the biggest children's hit since Harry Potter.

Londoner Louisa Young, a 43-year-old Cambridge graduate, could soon be following in the phenomenally successful footsteps of JK Rowling, who was also a single parent.

Puffin, the children's division of the publishers Penguin, beat two other bidders for the rights to Lionboy, the creation of Ms Young and her daughter Isabel.

The pair might also be expected to net fortunes from film rights, computer games and merchandising deals - the kind of spin-offs which have netted JK Rowling tens of millions of pounds.

The advance is today reported to dwarf that given to Rowling, who was paid only pounds 2,000 for her first book. Thanks to Harry Potter, of course, she has gone on to become the highest earning woman in Britain with a pounds 226million fortune.

Puffin spokeswoman Adele Minchin said the company was hoping that Lionboy would be the next Harry Potter. "The minute it came in everybody just went crazy about it," she enthused.

The series of books feature Charlie Ashanti, who was scratched by a leopard as a baby and can communicate with cats.

Set in a futuristic London, the first book involves him teaming up with circus lions to track down his parents who have been kidnapped.

Created by the mother and daughter team as bedtime stories six years ago, the tales were only recently put down on paper.

Ms Young said: "It really is a family production. Isabel has the ideas and I do the typing. We are splitting the money 50-50.

Isabel is spending part of her share on piano lessons."

She added: "You work hard for a long time and then something like this happens."

JK Rowling first began writing the Harry Potter books in an Edinburgh caf when she was as a single mother.

The first novel was published in July 1997, with a new one launched in Britain every July until 2000.

The fifth book in the series, Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, is due to be published at the start of the summer-When Ms Rowling embarked on the series, she said she had "mapped out" the plots for almost all the books.

Ms Rowling, who married 30-year-old anaesthetist Neil Murray in a secret ceremony two years ago, is now the 13th richest woman in Britain.

Despite this success there have been fears that she was succumbing to writer's block.

Last year her biographer, Sean Smith, said: "She has more money than she ever dreamed of, and a happy private life.

"The propulsion to write has disappeared. Creativity comes out of adversity."

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