Randolph Readers Wild About Harry
By Martha Slater

The debut of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," was greeted with open arms in Randolph, and open books were much in evidence around town Saturday morning, July 21.

Cover to Cover Books on Main Street was jammed with customers (many of them in costume) at 6 a.m., and owner Jeanne Ward and her costumed employees were busy matching up many of the 200 pre-sold copies with their eager owners who came to pick them up.

The store hosted a simple breakfast for those early riser readers, who drew ribbons from the "sorting hat" to tell their "house" and later gathered in a circle to share a quiet reading of the first chapter, with young and old alike taking turns.

"We think about 45 people participated at the reading," Ward told The Herald Tuesday. "All 200 books had been spoken for, so right now I have no extras to sell."

Ward said she certainly felt the book lived up to its advance publicity and she was certainly enthralled, finishing it in 10 hours.

"I read from 8:30-10:30 Saturday night, and then fell asleep since I'd been up at 4 a.m. to open store that morning," she said, but she got up at 4 a.m. Sunday and read straight through until 12:30 p.m.

"The story will stay in your heart forever!" she said. "I think her quality of writing has stayed consistently wonderful."

Meanwhile, Ward promises not to ruin the ending for those who aren't quite as speedy as she is. A sign in her store window reads, "We will not say anything about anything, but hurry up and finish, so we can talk about it!"

Kimball Celebration

A week prior to the actual debut of the final Harry Potter book, Kimball Library held a celebration of the end of the series, Saturday, evening, July 14. Planned by local high school students Emily Kelly, Cara Tucker and Serenity Lohr, the party included a Harry Potter cake, scones, and tea. Thirtythree Harry Potter fans of all ages, from grandparents to small children, enjoyed the refreshments, as well as making wizard hats and wands.

Assigned to one of the four houses when they walked in, the guests also had a great time answering questions in a trivia quiz led by Peter Flaherty. The four houses competed against each other and each person who answered correctly received a "magic" bead. Although everyone couldn't talk about what happened in the new volume, they did have a lot of fun discussing the previous six volumes. Everyone also received a special "goody bag" with Harry Potter paraphernalia.

Many Harry Potter fans shared the wealth. Paul Kendall, who lives off of Riford Brook Road, has a young neighbor Danielle Dustin- Gagnon, whom he says "has always been the supplier of my Harry Potter books." A middle school student, Danielle got her book at 6 a.m. Saturday at Cover to Cover. Obviously a very fast reader, she had finished the book by the next day and didn't hesitate to pass her copy along.

"When I came back from church on Sunday, there it was sitting on the freezer chest in my garage," said Kendall, who also fell under the book's spell.

"I couldn't put it down!" he said. "I finished it Monday night. I thought it was gripping, right from the first chapter, and it had a lot of new twists along the way that just held me the whole way through the book."

For those who still haven't been able to get their hands on a copy of the final installment in J.K. Rowling's epic series, Ward says she's working on getting more copies to stock her store. She also expressed her gratitude for the community support she received.