The Left Lane
Schoolboy says he dubbed Harry Potter

LONDON — Makers of the much-anticipated Harry Potter film called in a voice double after its star's voice broke during filming, a British newspaper, the Sun, reports. London schoolboy Joe Sowerbutts was hired to dub two scenes for 12-year-old star Daniel Radcliffe in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," which is being released in Britain under the title "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone."

Although Warner Bros. has denied the news report, Sowerbutts, a seasoned actor who has appeared in British Broadcasting Corp. productions, said he spent one day recording at Shepperton Studios, near London. "It was a great honor for me," he told the newspaper.

Sowerbutts — who, like thousands of other children, auditioned for the Potter film — also provides the boy wizard's voice on Nintendo and PlayStation Harry Potter games, the newspaper said. The movie opens Nov. 16 in the United States.

Answer to every question is online

Parents typically have figured they're on their own when children asked questions such as "Why is the sky blue?" and "Why did Rover die?" Now there's help — online. Some Web sites that can answer "Why?" are listed in the November issue of Child magazine:

• www.howstuffworks.com is the perfect authority on anything and everything.
• www.space.com will answer all questions about anything out of this world.
• www.factmonster.com is just what it sounds like: a site that has, literally, encyclopedic knowledge.

"Take your plaaaaaace on the Great Mandalaaaaa, as it moves through this brief moment of time ... " That was Peter, Paul and Mary in 1967. But just to prove that what goes around comes around, mandalas — intricate artistic patterns in round or hexagonal shapes used as tools for meditation, healing, relaxation and guidance — are still very much with us.

A new book, "GaiaStar Mandalas: Ecstatic Visions of the Living Earth," by Bonnie Bell and David Todd, is a series of computer-manipulated images of natural elements — leaves, feathers, stones, flower petals, fungus, crystals. The couple, who live in Mendocino, Calif., are collage artists who discovered that, with the aid of a digital scanner and graphic software, they could create these kaleidoscope-like images from photographs of found objects. Each full-page photo in this 112-page picture book is named and its source elements identified. Gazing at the mandalas, your mind drifts or, as it was said in the 1960s, trips out.