JAY — The Jay-Niles Memorial Library saw a big turnout on Thursday, April 18, for its Harry Potter themed party, which saw kids dress up as their favorite characters while drinking butterscotch cream soda, making wands and watching the very first film in the series, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”.

The event took place on the second floor of the library, and took place between 3 and 6 p.m.

According to Tween/Teen Librarian Alexis Burbank, the event saw roughly 100 people throughout the evening, with kids enjoying the many different crafting activities and snacks.

“We’ve had several Harry Potter events over the years,” Burbank shared with the Livermore Falls Advertiser. “It’s been requested by a lot of kids. Nowadays, there’s a whole new wave of kids getting interested in Harry Potter, so it seemed like a fun thing to do for April vacation.”

According to Burbank, the library has had Harry Potter themed events in the past, typically around Halloween. It had been a few years since the last event, but the staff still had decorations ready to go to host an event at a moment’s notice.

“We’re lucky,” she said. “We’ve had some summer reading programs that were kind of Harry Potter themed way back in the day, so we’ve gathered up some Harry Potter items, but we came up with a few new activities.”

The library staff took the second floor and decorated the space with candles and banners featuring the four different “houses” that the characters of the book join at their school.

Each of these houses has a special color associated with it, which the library took advantage of by allowing kids to choose a house and make a special tie based on the color.

Kids also had the chance to decorate a wand using a hot glue gun and wooden dowels, which was monitored by Children’s Librarian Lindsey Hopkins to ensure safety.

Kids also got a chance to make an owl doll out of washcloths, based on the titular character’s pet owl Hedwig.

During the evening, the library also had a scavenger hunt, where the kids would go looking for Horcruxes, a special item from the Harry Potter universe. Kids that found these items were given tickets to the raffle to win a Funko Pop! vinyl figure. Burbank said the winner was from Jay.

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