Pre-Midnight Madness At Booth Library

Precedes Release Of Final Harry Potter Book

By Shannon Hicks

“It’s very hard to believe that in 20 minutes the last book is going to be coming out,” Nick Burns said last Friday night, looking at the clock and seeing how close it was to midnight. Nick was one of 50 young adults who had signed up for a Harry Potter Book Release Party — the final one to be held in Newtown, and in libraries, book stores, and similar settings around the world, in fact. As many Muggles around the world could tell you, Saturday, July 21, 2007, was a big day in the history of Harry Potter: it was the release date for the final book in J.K. Rowling’s insanely popular series of books about a young wizard, his friends, and their adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The library’s party was open to residents entering grades 5 to 12 (or ages 10 to 18) who were interested in joining with library staff and fellow Harry Potter friends prior to the book’s midnight release, and the list of those who signed up for the big event filled up early.

“We reached the full 50 [guests on the sign-up list] two weeks before the party,” Booth Library Young Adult Librarian Margaret Brown said. “There were another 19 people on the waiting list.” It was the third Harry Potter party hosted by the library. The first two were in 2003 to celebrate Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and the other was in 2005 for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In addition to those who signed up, 23 Young Adult Council members were at the party.

As midnight approached Friday evening, the young Newtown readers were part of a phenomenon that was going around the world as millions of people awaited the release of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. The seventh book in Rowling’s series was not to be released into the hands of readers until after the stroke of midnight.

To celebrate the book’s impending release, Ms Brown had arranged for a party to be held at the library in the two hours leading up to midnight. The lower meeting room of the library was divided into the four houses of Hogwarts, with banners proclaiming the home base for Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin residents.

The party was full of activity from the moment it started. There was a trivia contest between the members of each house, skits were performed by members of the library’s Young Adult Council (YAC) (who actually had planned the entire event, said Ms Brown, beginning back in March), costume and guessing contests, and plenty of refreshments. Quidditch equipment had been hidden around the meeting room, and those who found the pieces were also given prizes.

The party extended well beyond the meeting room. When they entered the library, parents and attendees (who were dropped off for the two-hour event) were greeted by black spiders dangling from the ceiling, a huge black spider that was set up to look like it was standing over the check-in table, and, further down the hall, a pair of (motionless) Whomping Willow trees. Inside the meeting room a black banner with speckled openings had been hung from the ceiling, which added to the enchanted setting.

The decorations, which were led in their creation by parent Suzanne Lang, were magnificent.

The party also offering screenings of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in the children’s department, partygoers had the opportunity to play Harry Potter Scene-It, a board game with DVD interaction, any time they wanted to, and caricature artist (and Harry Potter fan) Mike Valentine was busy all night doing drawings for any attendee who sat still long enough for him to capture his/her image on paper.

Costumes were encouraged for Friday night’s event, and more kids than not followed that encouragement. Nick was one, and he was arrived wearing a silver cape and a black hat. He carried a wand and had an H (“for Hogwarts,” he explained) stitched onto his cape.

“My favorite part of party was the skits,” said Max Galassi, 10, who was one of the winners in the evening’s costume contest. With his broom, snitch, robe and goggles, Max was honored with the Judges Choice title and given a box of Bertie Bott’s Beans as a prize. Prizes were also given to the winners of Closest Character Award and Most Creative.

When Nick made his “20 minutes” remark, it seemed to reignite the excitement for which the evening had been planned. Attendees had just finished watching the skits, and there was a lull between activities. Most partygoers were still sitting on the carpeted floor, talking about the skits they had seen and other Potter-related ongoings, and many seemed to have forgotten the time. Suddenly there was much excited chatter as more and more of the participants looked and/or pointed at the clock and began talking animatedly about the time.

The highlight of the event, of course, was the release just after midnight of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. Following the skits and a few minutes of chatting, everyone was asked to leave the meeting room and gather in the hallway outside the children’s department. While they were waiting, YAC members picked up Books 1 through 6 and took them into the meeting room’s kitchen. Dry ice was put into a cauldron on the table where the books had been sitting all night, and flameless candles were put onto the table, three to each side of the cauldron.

The meeting room’s lights were extinguished, and the full crowd was allowed back into the meeting room, being told to sit quietly on the floor and facing the table with the cauldron and candles. Once the group was seated, readings began. YAC members walked through the dark room, using glow sticks to illuminate their way as they walked toward the table, then turned to face the crowd and read a passage from their book. As each was read from, Books 1 through 6 were returned to the bookstand where they had been resting all night.

Then from the back of the room came another voice.

“A reading,” the female voice said, “from Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.”

Excited whispers nearly overwhelmed the reading by Joann Smith, who read the opening passage from Book 7. After the readings, books were handed out to those who had ordered and paid for them in advance. It was not necessary to order the book to attend the party, but those who were waiting for their copies crowded around Ms Brown and her cart of books, hands reaching as she called the names of each book’s owner and passed out the books. Then the real fun began, as dozens of attendees headed home and began their reading.

Reviews Are In

(Spoiler Alert: Comments and quotes from this point forward include critical information — including spoilers — from Book 7. Do not read any further if you are trying to avoid learning the outcome of any characters or plot threads before reading the book yourself.)

Who dies in the final book of the Harry Potter series? More importantly, perhaps: Does Harry survive?

Reviews of Deathly Hallows have been almost universally positive, and Friday’s attendees are among those praising the book overall.

Morgan Reiss, who was the first in Newtown to receive her copy of Deathly Hallows, said Monday afternoon that she was pleased with the way the series ended. She had finished reading her book by Sunday, and had already started rereading it when she talked to The Bee.

She had no idea that Hedwig would be killed, which happens in an early chapter.

“I was pretty sad because I really liked Hedwig,” said Morgan. She was also “kind of caught off guard” to read of the death of Fred Weasley. She was pleased, however, with the overall conclusion of the series, which is celebrated with an Epilogue that takes place 19 years after the book’s finale. There are marriages, children, even references to who continues to teach and who has since begun teaching at Hogwarts.

Ben Galassi, 11, was also at Friday’s party and made a point of reading the entire book by the beginning of this week. He was happy and disappointed with it.

“I was pleased with the book, except for a couple things,” he said. “Some of the characters did die, some that have been in the whole series, and there were also some questions that weren’t answered even if they weren’t significant.”

He was not pleased, for instance, that the color of Harry’s eyes — which author J.K. Rowling has said in interviews is important — was not covered.

“They didn’t give us a full understanding of the color of Harry’s eyes, and they never fully described what the veil in the Department of Mysteries was,” he continued. “They talked about it a little at the end of Book 5, but I thought it would be talked about more now.”

He was a little confused over the book’s cover art, which seems to depict Harry and Voldemort in an arena. That scene, Ben pointed out, is never played out in the book.

“Overall it was a good book, though. It wrapped up things, definitely,” said Ben. He liked that Hagrid was mentioned in the epilogue, but would have liked to know about the other professors, he said.

J.K. Rowling has said that she has no plans for a Book 8 but the thing is, while it closes some story lines, the epilogue of Book 7 also opens plenty of new ones. Maybe Ben will get his wish one day.