World of Harry Potter comes alive at library
Hold on to your sorting hat — Cumberland Public Library goes whole Hogwarts this Saturday
CUMBERLAND – Cumberland Public Library invites Gryffindors, Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and Slytherins alike to its third annual Harry Potter Day, an event that shows even muggles can find magic at their local library.
“We’re just trying to generate excitement and enthusiasm for the library,” director Celeste Dyer said. “We’re not just a boring place where you go to do your homework.”
Harry Potter Day, taking place at the library on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., will feature a stroll through the “Shoppes of Diagon Alley,” a wizard duel for teens, a demonstration from the University of Rhode Island Quidditch Club, trivia, and a performance from Draco and the Malfoys.
The event was largely planned by Dyer, assistant director Aaron Coutu, children’s librarian Kim Usselman and teen librarian Liz Gotauco.
On display in a glass case in the library lobby are an assortment of items from J.K. Rowling’s wizard- ing world: a “Nimbus 2017” broom, a Golden Snitch, a wand and a made-up page of The Daily Prophet newspaper.
The page, with the signature tagline “The Wizarding World’s Beguiling Broadsheet of Choice,” lays out the schedule of events. At 9:30 a.m., Flourish and Blotts Book Emporium – known as the Friends Book Store on most Saturdays – will be open for business.
The bookstore is typically open from 9:30 to 12:30 but will be open until 2 on Harry Potter Day. It’s one of 10 features of the Shoppes of Diagon Alley that will be open from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Kids can stop into Ollivander’s Wand Shoppe to make a wand or visit Trelawney’s House of Henna to get a henna tattoo. Eyelop’s Owl Emporium will have owl pellets to break open, while Borgin and Burkes will be a spooky scene.
Visitors can make potions at Slug & Jiggers Apothecary – edible ones, of course – or make crafts at Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. The other stops are Gringott’s Wizard Bank, Daily Prophet and Madame Malkin’s, with the 10 locations spread throughout the library.
“We try to do a few library-wide programs each year,” Dyer said. “You may just go in the children’s room because you have children.” Events like these, she said, may take people to areas of the library they didn’t know were there.
The Shoppes at Diagon Alley Spring Stroll is new this year, while there was a scavenger hunt the first year and kids could go to Hogwarts “classes” last year. Students would get an owl stamp from each class, to symbolize the completion of their Ordinary Wizarding Level (O.W.L.) exams.
Visitors can also participate in a scavenger hunt this year, with the option of completing it on paper or via the TrekSolver app. Jumping off the newest movie in the Harry Potter franchise, the scavenger hunt has participants trying to find fantastic beasts.
Those who complete the scavenger hunt can get a “you’re a fantastic beast hunter” button, and other activities involve buttons as rewards.
From 11 a.m. to noon, teens can take part in a wizard duel involving props based on the spells they cast. At 1 p.m., URI’s Quidditch Club will be returning for the third year to do a demonstration on the back lawn and then have the kids play Quidditch.
The fictional sport J.K. Rowling invented has grown into a niche athletic interest in the real world, with more than 300 teams worldwide. While riding on broomsticks and passing a volleyball to teammates, players try to get the ball into one of three sideways-facing hoops at their end of the field.
“There’s football, there’s soccer, there’s basketball, there’s muggle Quidditch,” Dyer said casually.
After Quidditch will be Leaky Cauldron Pub Trivia – Harry Potter
themed – in the community room. In the community room from 4 to 5 p.m., the wizard rock band Draco and the Malfoys will play their original music about Harry Potter from the perspective of Harry’s titular in-school nemesis.
Like the URI Quidditch Club, this will be the band’s third visit to Harry Potter Day at the library.
Brothers Bradley Mehlenbacher and Brian Ross founded the band in Woonsocket in 2005, but they have taken their music to die-hard Harry Potter fans around the country. This year, the group has shows booked in New York City, Gainesville and Atlanta.
Harry Potter Day attendees are encouraged to dress up as characters from the series, as the library staff are doing. Dyer will be dressed as Professor McGonagall, while other staff members are coming as Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood, Dolores Umbridge, Remus Lupin and Rita Skeeter.
April 1 also happens to be the birthday of Fred and George Weasley, and the library will be celebrating with cupcakes and its version of canary creams.
Dyer commented, “We do the best we can; we’re muggles.”