Lit Picks and Tech Tips

Well, the seventh and last Harry Potter book was released on Saturday. I have to admit, I’m feeling pretty sad about it.   I’ve been anxiously waiting for the book to get here for so long, and now it’s simply over. No more adventures from Harry. I feel a bit teary.

Friday night around 9:00, our family (plus Corey’s friend Bradley) went Harry Potter party hopping. We started out in downtown Springfield at Well Fed Head. They had transformed their bookstore into Weasly’s Wizarding Wheezes, complete with cans of U NO POO and extendable ears. There were many people downtown dressed in costume, taking carriage rides, and visiting the other downtown stores that were participating in Harry Potter events (the glass shop was making custom wands, the Moxie theater was showing old HP movies, etc.). Next we traveled to Barnes and Noble. They had quite a few people in the store, enough to make it pretty clausterphobic as we tried to make our way through the store, but it was not as crowded as the last HP book release two years ago. They didn’t have as many activities to participate in, so we left pretty quickly. Our last stop was Borders bookstore. They, too, had a pretty decent crowd, and they had more activities for people do to. They had face painting, a variety of crafts, fortune telling, and a magician.
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We ended the evening back at our house where we watched J.K. Rowling read the first chapter of the book live from London on the Scholastic website. The boys helped me make decorations for my Harry Potter party, which was held Saturday. I finished making the chololate frogs while they created some pretty cool house crest shields. At midnight, we went to Wal Mart in Ozark to get our book. There was a pretty long line, but it moved quickly. The lady at Wal Mart was very nice and gave me a bunch of extra posters and bookmarks to give my kids Saturday at the party.

When we got back home, Corey and Bradley immediately started reading, and I had to finally make them stop reading and go to bed around 2:00 a.m. I think they would have read all night!

My party at the library on Saturday was very fun. We had 31 kids attend (plus parents), and Corey, Bradley, Ms. Kern, and Mrs. McKoy helped about by serving as “prefects” for each house. The kids “shopped” for school supplies in Diagon Alley (they made robes, hats, and wands), and then we had a sorting ceremony in the library. We moved to our house tables and had a contest with some trivia questions and went on a hunt for the snitch. I read the first chapter of the book to the kids, and we had drawings for prizes, including two copies of the book! We finished by going to Hogsmede and visiting the Three Broomsticks for butterbeer and Honeydukes for sweets such as chocolate frogs, licorice wands, etc. Each students got to take home a Harry Potter pen, a poster, a bookmark, and lots of sweets.

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And yes, I read the whole book already. The library will have six copies that the kids can check out when school starts.

Hope the rest of you get to enjoy the last book soon!

Cindy, your very sad library lady