When Number One and Two Sons were small boys, I was searching for something new to read aloud to them. A friend handed me an advanced readers copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and so the magic began…
Creativity is exciting and fun. J.K. Rowling is quite simply creative…creative on a different level…and so are some of the people I work with.
Bloomsbury Publishing started Harry Potter Book night last year on February 4th. The idea…to read… reading the Harry Potter Books with kids is magical. Reading and celebrating all over the world and this year was year two…and My Librarian thought…wouldn’t it be fun…and so the planning began…in September for us to be a part of Harry Potter Book Night. Our goal…to share the magic and introduce a new generation of readers to the joy of the books..to read and be read to.
I cannot put into a few paragraphs the detailed planning, creativity, excitement and (I will be honest) exhaustion that have gone on…ramping up to last night. The pictures will not do it justice… Over the last few weeks we read chapters 1&2 to the kids to get them ready for the fun in chapter 3. Chapter 3 would be read at book night…and so on a cold Thursday night we opened our own castle and had to start the reading early…because the place was packed!
With an English accent Number Two read from his beloved book…
There was wand making… charms lessons…
potion lessons…
Sorting…
Owl post…
Pumpkin juice and cauldron cakes…
Flying keys…flying letters…brick lined castle everywhere… Knights, cauldrons and brooms… Children searching for hidden snitches. Lines of children to enter the Quiddich training course, fabricated in the darkened gym by our clever PE teacher…
…and this group here…
College students from CWU who came to help…most I hadn’t met…friends of Number Two….but more importantly friends of Harry Potter. They grew up loving the books and were delighted to come , to work our stations stirring potions, handing out acid pops, teaching wand moves and to share the magic…
Excited children everywhere…about a book…
and we are all blessed.
What a delightful evening! I would have loved to have experienced your Harry Potter World. So cool that the reading is continuing at lunch!!!
You would have loved it…and you’d love our school too! Too bad that you do not ‘do’ winter….
No surprise here by all that creativity!!! You all look beyond great!! What lucky kids to have ” olders” of all sorts willing to invest in them like you all did!
Thanks my friend! “Olders” is sooo important! I have “Olders” (even than me) coming to continue to read the story to those kids that want to hear it at lunch. Not all of our kids have adults who would or can do that for them…I am maybe even more excited about that!
You are all amazing! Such the spice of life…love it!
Thanks Mady, We are exhausted, but it was worth it all!
OMG!!!!! I wish I could’ve been there! It looks so magical! Love the brick painting for the castle… very realistic. And Number Two Son and his helpers… what a blessing. Mad Eye Moody is a total HOOT! He could be understudy in the movie! And are you, Ellen, Prof. MacGonnagal?
Thanks Mims…. It was something else! I was Miss Ellen Sprout, Professor Sprout’s American cousin!
Love Mad Eye Moody!
Thanks Richard, my son thought he was the only choice, now that he has the scar to go with it!