J.K Rowling may have published the last installment of her famed series about the boy wizard in 2007, but Harry Potter mania is very much alive in Sitka.
Last Thursday (2-5-15), staff of the Kettleson Memorial Library transformed the Stratton location into the Hogwarts castle, complete with floating candlesticks, owls, and of course, a competition for the House Cup.
Harry Potter Night (Slideshow)
Fifty students participated and were sorted into the four houses: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Children ages 3 to 6 were sorted as “House Elves.” The houses rotated between different Harry Potter themed activities, from a scavenger hunt amid the bookshelves to potions class with local herbs. Ultimately, Slytherin won the House Cup, but not before students emptied the cauldrons of Butterbeer and Polyjuice Potion. Over two dozen adult volunteers dressed in character and facilitated the evening.
Bloomsbury Children’s Books declared February 5th the first annual “Harry Potter Book Night,” to “embrace the magic and banish the midwinter blues.”
Kettleson librarian Maite Lorente wanted to bring the event to the library, which hosted it’s first Harry Potter night in July of 2007. “It was fantastic, it was magic and I was ready to repeat something like that,” Lorente said.
Of the evening, Lorente said, “The books will always awake the same fantastic reaction to many more generations of readers. The characters truly live among us.”
