Harry Potter Rules––

Library Hosts A Magical Evening For Young Readers

By Dottie Evans

The silence must have been deafening last weekend as hundreds of Newtown children spent hours and hours reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling.

Today, a week after the Harry Potter Party held Friday night, June 20, from 9 pm to midnight at the Cyrenius H. Booth Library, most of the 75 partygoers have already finished reading the all-time advance best-seller in publishing history that they simply could not wait one more day to own for themselves.

It is over.

They have turned the last page of the fifth and longest book in the Harry Potter Series, taken off their sorting hats, put down their wands, and heaved a sigh of satisfaction. It was a great read.

Finally, after waiting three years since reading the fourth book, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, they know a lot more than they did before about the adventures of Harry, Hermione, and Ron at Hogwarts School, a fictional academy of magic arts located somewhere in the green hills of England.

They know which important character dies. Awfully sad.

They know what new, dark facts about Harry’s past are revealed, and how the young hero-magician is reacting to the growing realization of who he is, and what his future might hold. Horrifying.

For those of us who are still slogging through the 870 pages, we hope they won’t spoil the story.

If slower readers do not yet know the ending, they can count on this –– it will leave them wanting to know more. And all muggles will need a Patience Charm, because they will have to wait at least a year for the next book to be published. Probably longer. Agony. Dreadful.

Ms Rowling has promised there will be seven books in all, and she claims to have written the last chapter already. Totally tantalizing.

Pumpkin Punch And Chocolate Frogs

The Potter Party was co-sponsored by Children’s Librarian Alana Meloni and Young Adult Librarian Margaret Brown with the help of a group of 13 Youth Advisory Board members: Katie Aiello, Becky Carrafiello, Christine D’Alessandro, Chelsea Fowler, Michael Lago, Brandon Leon-Gambetta, Stefan Leon-Gambetta, Bethany Morin, Lauren Morrissey, Sammy Villa, Stephanie Villa, Kandyce Woods, and Grace Galie.

They had decorated the public meeting room with black banners and gold stars, and they prepared a number of magical treats including pretzel wands, chocolate frogs, and a witch’s brew of pumpkin-cinnamon cider.

While some talked, giggled, or read quietly in the hall, others sat in chairs or sprawled on the floor in front of the projector screen where the DVD movie of Ms Rowling’s second book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, was playing.

Many worked to complete a “Hogwarts Pop Quiz” that the youth advisors had passed out and some, like 14-year-old Cody Sekela, were just waiting until 12:01 am when the books would be made available.

“I paid for my own copy because my sisters are slow readers. I couldn’t possibly wait for them to finish if they got it first,” Cody said.

Ms Meloni was holding fast to the rule established by Scholastic, the publisher, that no books could be distributed before midnight Friday.

“You can go home early,” she said, “but you can’t go home early with a book.”

She added that 15 copies would be put into circulation the next day, and a long waiting list had already formed.

Flying Off The Shelves

By Sunday morning, nearly everyone in town who really wanted a copy of the Harry Potter blockbuster could have found it somewhere in the greater Danbury area.

The book went on sale Friday midnight at Border’s and Barnes & Noble, and early the next morning at Stew Leonard’s (with the discount price and offer of a free Pepsi announced in blinking lights on the store’s Federal Road billboard) and at Wal-Mart.

The Smoke Shop on Church Hill Road in Newtown displayed a bright blue stack of Harry Potters next to the cash register. The thick books towered over such mundane countertop items as Ju-Ju-Bees, lottery tickets, and cigarette lighters, and several customers who came in for a Sunday New York Times went out with Harry tucked under their arms.

A FedEx driver making his rounds Saturday morning said he had almost nothing on his truck but 60 copies of Harry Potter, all pre-orders from Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com to be delivered to Newtown families.

“It’s amazing. The kids are running out their doors to meet the truck. I’ve never seen anything like it,” one driver commented.

A total of 8.5 million copies were printed in the United States, of which five million have already been sold, according to the publisher. The first four books in the series have sold 192 million copies worldwide and they have been printed in 55 languages.