Modesto library to kick off Hogwarts Week

Lumos maxima!

Harry Potter has been out of the spotlight for a while, since his last adventure – “The Deathly Hallows” – published in 2007 and was in theaters in 2011.

But that’s about to change for Modesto children as the downtown Stanislaus County Library prepares for Hogwarts Week, to be celebrated Monday through Thursday with games, crafts, a magic show and a movie.

Why now? Well, the county library’s summer reading program theme is “Every Hero Has a Story,” and boy wizard Harry certainly is a literary hero to many children around the world.

Plus, “Harry’s birthday is on the 31st (the character’s birthdate is July 31, 1980), and it’s been so long since we’ve done a party,” said Amber O’Brien-VerHulst, a library assistant in the children’s and teens areas. “We’ve been wanting to do something for a while.”

The party will get started Monday with a scavenger hunt and trivia game that will be available every day. The scavenger hunt, held in the children’s area, will be “on the easier side,” O’Brien-VerHulst said. The trivia game is more of a challenge, for “kids who are really into Harry Potter” and know their stuff. Participants will be randomly assigned to a Hogwarts house – Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw and Slytherin – so library visitors can see which one is winning through the week.

The last time the library held a Hogwarts Week, it required preregistration for events, but won’t do that this time, O’Brien-VerHulst said. Beyond the scavenger hunt and trivia available each day, the first one-time-only activity will be a magic show by Shawn Durham at 1:30 p.m. Monday. If turnout for the show is surprisingly high, library staff can adjust expectations for subsequent events, O’Brien-VerHulst said.

The magic show, craft events and Harry’s birthday party all will be in the downstairs auditorium, dubbed the Room of Requirement for Hogwarts Week “because it can turn into anything we need,” O’Brien-VerHulst said.

Tuesday’s craft activities will begin at 3:30. They will include making wands, quills and potions. The potions consist of glitter or food coloring added to clear tubes of bubble-blowing solution. Staff already has tested the bubbles with a bit of dye to ensure nothing stains, O’Brien-VerHulst said. And while the idea of glittering bubbles sounds cool, she said the glitter quickly sinks, so it’s purely decorative in the tube.

The quills are feathers taped to little library pencils, and the wands are made using dowels and decorative beads.

Wednesday at 3:30, kids will be sorted into Hogwarts houses to play a simplified version of Quidditch, O’Brien-VerHulst said. Kids will carry a small “golden snitch” as they would an egg on a spoon. “It’s a ‘slow and steady wins the race’ kind of thing,” she said.

The celebration will conclude with Harry’s birthday party a day early, on Thursday, because the library is closed Fridays. The celebration will begin at 1:30, followed by a screening at 2:30 of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.”

For more on kids events at all Stanislaus County Library branches, visit www.stanislauslibrary.org.

This story was originally published July 24, 2015 at 11:14 AM with the headline "Modesto library to kick off Hogwarts Week."