Washington Post article on Stouffer

[heidit at ...]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A62378-2001Mar26.html
This is the first time I've seen actual quotes from Scholastic's 
General Counsel on the matter, and the article is the most balanced 
I've read in recent weeks.

Among the quotes/paraphrases:
Though she has skimmed the Harry Potter books, she says she hasn't 
really read them. Others have pointed out many of the alleged 
similarities. 

Stouffer's productions ... are 24-page activity books -- homespun 
amalgams of stories, pencil games and pictures to color.

Scholastic executives have doubts about the extent to which "Legend 
of Rah" was ever available. "Check Books in Print," [Charles] Deull[, 
Scholastic's General Counsel] says. "We've tried every rare-book 
store and Web site." They couldn't find a used copy for sale. Deull 
has seen a photocopy of the book.

In the late 1980s, Stouffer says the books were selling so well and 
licensing agreements were flooding in at such a rate that she 
projected annual earnings of an astonishing $1 billion. She says that 
during one 2 1/2-week period her company received orders for $6.5 
million, which could have made publishing history. However, even with 
these orders in hand her company fell apart, she says. She has no 
records of these gigantic sales because the studio at her home 
collapsed during a snowstorm in 1996...

For more stuff and nonsense, read the article.