Yes, I know - late bloomer, behind the times, yada yada yada...Reading the Harry Potter books and seeing the movies really are on my agenda!
Our local library hosted their annual 'Harry Potter's Hogwarts Acadamy' event this past Saturday. They've done it several years in a row now (a fact I learned, among many, since I'm finally 'getting out there in the community'), and this year the number of kids doubled from the past three years, making it around 60! (Again - picture it: Me, voluntarily, around 60 kids!). The children ranged in age from 8 to 12, and my reason for being there was to cover this event and take photos of the
kids for our local paper's website.
I was quickly surprised at how cute and charming the kids were. This one kid, Pedro, was 15 and in h
igh school and he "escorted" me out to the field where a group was playing Quidditch ( a Harry Potter game, for those of you not familiar). One of the volunteers asked him to walk me out there, so he smiled and promptly took my arm. Of course, I had to say to him, "No, silly! Do it this way" and proceeded to show him the proper way to hold out his arm for a girl. Hopefully that little tidbit of experienced wisdom will come in handy for him someday. But he really was charming, and some 
of the volunteers and library staff, all dressed up in robes and with names from Harry Potter, like 'Professor Von Viper' and 'Professor Von Skeet', were like, "Isn't Pedro precious? We just love him! What a great kid!".
Our local library hosted their annual 'Harry Potter's Hogwarts Acadamy' event this past Saturday. They've done it several years in a row now (a fact I learned, among many, since I'm finally 'getting out there in the community'), and this year the number of kids doubled from the past three years, making it around 60! (Again - picture it: Me, voluntarily, around 60 kids!). The children ranged in age from 8 to 12, and my reason for being there was to cover this event and take photos of the
kids for our local paper's website.I was quickly surprised at how cute and charming the kids were. This one kid, Pedro, was 15 and in h
igh school and he "escorted" me out to the field where a group was playing Quidditch ( a Harry Potter game, for those of you not familiar). One of the volunteers asked him to walk me out there, so he smiled and promptly took my arm. Of course, I had to say to him, "No, silly! Do it this way" and proceeded to show him the proper way to hold out his arm for a girl. Hopefully that little tidbit of experienced wisdom will come in handy for him someday. But he really was charming, and some 
of the volunteers and library staff, all dressed up in robes and with names from Harry Potter, like 'Professor Von Viper' and 'Professor Von Skeet', were like, "Isn't Pedro precious? We just love him! What a great kid!".So Pedro asked me first if I was a reporter, and when he was asked about school starting up, he started talking about studying! And in such a way that he felt studying was important! And that he was looking forward to it!! Then he asked me if I liked my job, and I said, "I never do anything unless it's fun and I enjoy it." He said, "Well that's good, because I know a lot of grown-ups who don't like their jobs and aren't happy at all, sitting in an office, etc. and I definitely don't want to do something I won't enjoy!" Wow - blew me away what this kid was saying. Part of me wished I had thought that way when I was his age.
My assignment for that day was to observe some of the events and take photos for the website, at least 60 to 100. I had such a good time watching, learning, and interacting with the children (I know, right!?), that I stayed for most of the day. It was a lot of fun!
The kids were all so talented, as I was able to observe them making their own ties, hats, and robes, and ther
e were so many creative ones!
The whole day was a fun, new, and really interesting experience for me, especially because I generally don't like to be around kids, and that's putting it very gently. I generally, out of habit, run frantically and quickly in the other direction, in fact...But I even learned a few things about 'ol Harry Potter, and I was so impressed to see how all the kids knew so much about the books/movies, and at times, it was as if they were all speaking their own magical little language! They had been divided into four groups, representing the four houses in the stories. There were two different 'classrooms', Academic Dungeon 1 and Academic Dungeon 2, set asid
e for the game of "20 Questions", in which a Professor would ask questions pertaining to the series, and each team would compete to win with the correct answer, and I might add, all questions were answered by raised hands (!), waiting until they were called upon to speak (!!), and each team gathering in a sort of "huddle" to come up with the right answer. It was really neat to watch! 
One of the most unexpected and surprising aspects of the day, was realizing that every kid there, again around 60 of them, was really well behaved. They were so "team-oriented", working, laughing, and playing together, having a great time, and - oh Golly!! - they were all so sweet and polite! Aside from obviously good parenting, I couldn't help but think that a tiny bit of this good behavior from a large pack of kids could have been just the tiniest sprinkle of the Magic that is the Harry Potter Phenomenon. If there's anything bigger than Harry Potter right now, I sure don't know what it is!
And staying there the whole day gave me the opportunity not only to talk to the kids and take their pictures, while learning a good bit about all things Harry Potter, but it also allowed me to meet the people who run the Library system and some pretty cool volunteers!
So who can guess which movies are at the top of my Netflix queue now?
And who'da thunk it? Me!? Spending the whole day around those kids and having that experience was one of the funnest, most interesting days I've had in a while! Or, to paraphrase that in "Bunnyspeak", Just another trip to BIZARRO WORLD!!
My assignment for that day was to observe some of the events and take photos for the website, at least 60 to 100. I had such a good time watching, learning, and interacting with the children (I know, right!?), that I stayed for most of the day. It was a lot of fun!
The kids were all so talented, as I was able to observe them making their own ties, hats, and robes, and ther
e were so many creative ones!The whole day was a fun, new, and really interesting experience for me, especially because I generally don't like to be around kids, and that's putting it very gently. I generally, out of habit, run frantically and quickly in the other direction, in fact...But I even learned a few things about 'ol Harry Potter, and I was so impressed to see how all the kids knew so much about the books/movies, and at times, it was as if they were all speaking their own magical little language! They had been divided into four groups, representing the four houses in the stories. There were two different 'classrooms', Academic Dungeon 1 and Academic Dungeon 2, set asid
e for the game of "20 Questions", in which a Professor would ask questions pertaining to the series, and each team would compete to win with the correct answer, and I might add, all questions were answered by raised hands (!), waiting until they were called upon to speak (!!), and each team gathering in a sort of "huddle" to come up with the right answer. It was really neat to watch! 
One of the most unexpected and surprising aspects of the day, was realizing that every kid there, again around 60 of them, was really well behaved. They were so "team-oriented", working, laughing, and playing together, having a great time, and - oh Golly!! - they were all so sweet and polite! Aside from obviously good parenting, I couldn't help but think that a tiny bit of this good behavior from a large pack of kids could have been just the tiniest sprinkle of the Magic that is the Harry Potter Phenomenon. If there's anything bigger than Harry Potter right now, I sure don't know what it is!
And staying there the whole day gave me the opportunity not only to talk to the kids and take their pictures, while learning a good bit about all things Harry Potter, but it also allowed me to meet the people who run the Library system and some pretty cool volunteers!
So who can guess which movies are at the top of my Netflix queue now?
And who'da thunk it? Me!? Spending the whole day around those kids and having that experience was one of the funnest, most interesting days I've had in a while! Or, to paraphrase that in "Bunnyspeak", Just another trip to BIZARRO WORLD!!
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