Hooray for Harry!

The Book Trout is besotted by Potter! My eleven-year-old daughter Amy and I went to a
Harry Potter party last night and had a blast. The local independent bookstore in Glens Falls, New York, Red Fox Books, partnered with the local library to deck out their parking lot and several "Diagon" alleys around them with all kinds of activities: face painting, origami, free cake, a trivia contest, a costume contest, displays of turkey vultures and owls, sales of sticky sweet Butter Beer specially brewed by the local microbrewery and a short theater production.

I mostly spent time holding our place in various lines, so my dogs are killing me this morning and my eyelids are propped up with toothpicks, but Amy flitted around with a pack of other tweens wearing her Harry Potter glasses and was so excited about getting her copy of Harry
Potter and the Deathly Hallows and staying up until MIDNIGHT! It was hard not to gush along with her, but I was mostly using my extendable ears to listen to other kids' conversations about what they thought would unfold in the final book.

Red Fox Books owners Naftali Rottenstreich (dressed in professorial robes) and Susan Fox (in witch accessories), had presold 200 copies of the book and there was a huge line of people who had not done so who were hoping for the remaining 100 other copies. Lots of gothic types strolling about of all ages, but the strongest hyper-vibrations emanated from the various elementary and junior high school kids at this Woodstock for fantasy lovers.

It really was astounding. We weren't in line to get the latest X-Box, Gameboy, I-POD, Star Wars movie premiere ticket, sale-priced plasma TV, etc. We were in line to get a book, by gum, and as a bookseller, mom, book lover, reader, that was brilliant, to use a British-ism favored by Rowling's characters.

I chugged my coffee this morning and dashed out of the house in time to open the shop, but not before peeking into the living room, where Amy was up to page 50 or so in the book, wearing her Potter specs. I said goodbye to her, and she waved me off impatiently, "Mom, Dumbledore's secrets are being revealed!".

Long live J.K. Rowling.