Harry Potter and the Curse of the Overexcited Kiddies (Part One)

Anywho, we weren’t sure what to expect numbers-wise.  I mean, this party was on Friday during the day before the book would come out.  For kids too young to stay up until midnight, this was an ideal opportunity to celebrate, wear costumes, and have a good time.  It also ended up getting advertised in the Daily News and AM New York.  But as fate would have it (and fate was remarkably kind to me that day in all sorts of ways) we got the perfect amount of children.  I’d guesstimate 100, plus parents, but that might be a little high. Whatever the case, almost everyone fit in our Story Hour Room to watch the magician and then lined up very nicely to get Sorted into the general craft area. 

Stealing an idea from one of my commenters on this blog, I decided to go as Rita Skeeter.  This is a very simple outfit that, should you wish to go as a non-teaching witch or wizard at a future Harry Potter party, can be easily accomplished.  You just need to curl your hair (check), wear some kind of writerly jacket (my mother’s high school teacher’s suit jacket, check), wear inappropriately dark red lipstick (and if it gets on your teeth even better, check), and long green fingernails.

As readers of this blog may remember, nails fascinate me in that I never have them done.  But I was determined to be a good Rita, so I purchased these glue-on kinds from the nearby Duane Reade and then painted them green in my spare time.  Oddly enough, you cannot find bright green nail polish in a drug store in Midtown.  What you can find is a sickly pale lime color that, in its own way, is just as horrid if not more so than its brighter brethren.  I painted the nails, stuck ’em on my hands, and was good to go when ABC News walked in.

Damn. 

Yes, ABC News was coming.  Of course they were.  They were coming and they wanted to talk to someone about that New York Times piece regarding how reading for fun hasn’t, supposedly, changed due to Harry Potter.  They were initially slated to arrive about noon, so I boned up on my stats.  I found the flaws in the argument, I was ready to debate the subject to death, and I was gung ho to go.  As it turned out, they showed up closer to 1:30 and by that time I felt obligated to Skeeter myself up.  So here I am in full Skeeter regalia, which is just close enough to normal everyday wear that I’m sure the viewers of ABC News (the New York local edition) are now under the impression that their children’s librarians have truly awful taste in make-up.  Amusingly, the reporter turned out to be the dad of one of my homeschool bookgroup kids, so we were able to chat about that for a while.  Manhattan is, at heart, just a very large small town.  Ironically, he never really asked me about the Times piece.  Just wanted to know if kids liked the books.  I said yes they did.  There are harder ways to make a living.

I hid the nails behind my back for the broadcast, but when it came time to do help out they couldn’t have gotten in my way more.  You have to understand that these weren’t just some slightly long press-ons.  These were Dragon Lady length talons.  I could have worked some serious damage, had ninjas suddenly attacked our party unannounced.  Ninjas were not in attendance, but we did get a werewolf bearing the name "Professor Lupin" around his neck, a Malfoy, and numerous Harrys in the room.  Ironically, Malfoy was sorted into Griffindor.  Amazing. 

Of course, the owls were a little late.  That actually worked out for the best.  Once they arrived we seated everyone in the Story Hour Room again and the kids got to see an adorable screech owl, a drop-dead gorgeous barn owl, and a couple others that I didn’t get a chance to look at because I was cleaning up.  Finally, when everyone left the room we handed out those cool Harry Potter bags Scholastic was kind enough to give us for our party (you may have seen them at the ALA Conference) and everyone got one.