Celebrating a Final Summer of Harry

The last Harry Potter movie, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” will be released in theatres July 15; the seventh and final book in the series was published in 2009. After dominating the world of children’s literature for almost 15 years, the final curtain is about to come down in the saga of Harry Potter and his magical friends. 

Even as the rest of the world begins to contemplate a new age in literature without a new Harry Potter story to savor, the Princeton Public Library is giving Harry and his cronies at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry a sendoff befitting a world phenomenon.

The final “Summer of Harry” at the library is filled with special events, including a weeklong festival of all seven Harry Potter films leading up to the release of “Deathly Hallows” and a public reading from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, the very first book in the series which came out in June of 1997.

“The Harry Potter books gave people of all ages a connection to one another—children, teenagers, adults, mothers, fathers, entire families – they all experienced the common emotions of anticipation, excitement and love for a story. And what a great story it is,” said Susan Conlon, teen services librarian, who, with fellow Youth Services Librarian Allison Santos has witnessed a half generation of children growing up, quite literally, with Harry Potter as part of their lives.

One of those children is Natasha Shatzkin, 13, a rising freshman at Princeton High School, who cannot remember a time in her life when Harry Potter and his cohorts were not a part of it. She was born in August, 1997, just two months after the release of the very first book.

“I remember my parents reading it out loud to me at night before bed,” she said. “We were almost at the end of the third book, and my dad was at work so he wasn’t there to read it to me. It was the most intense part of the book, where the characters were stuck in the shriek shack with the werewolf. I couldn’t wait to find out what happened. I didn’t want to wait for my dad to get home to finish it for me so I picked up the book and started reading it myself. I was six years old.”

Shatzkin says she was honored to be the first reader of the day in the public reading on Thursday, the library’s first ever, called the “Harry Potter Filibuster.” Readers of all ages took to the library stage set up in the lobby to read from the “Sorcerer’s Stone” starting at 9:30 in the morning, with a new reader every 15 minutes well into the afternoon.

When the movie opens at midnight on July 15, Shatzkin will be at one of the local theatres to watch, wearing full Harry Potter attire.

“For memory’s sake I’ll probably wear the same Harry Potter costume I wore for Halloween when I was eight years old,” she said. “Harry Potter’s world is a utopia. I like to imagine that I would enjoy living there. Popular books today like the ‘Hunger Games’, for example, just don’t give you the same sense of wonder, that feeling of 'whoa, I wish I could do that.'”

Carolyn Schwartz, 10, a rising fifth-grader at the Littlebrook School in Princeton, also relished taking center stage to take her turn at reading. She has read each of the Harry Potter books at least five or six times.

“Each time I read a book I seem to find something new and exciting,” she said. “I am never bored because everything seems so real. I like the beginning when people are not magic yet and then they change.”  

The Harry Potter books are beloved not only by Carolyn but by every person in her family, including her eight-year-old brother, Alex, her mother and her father, Dr. Mike Schwartz, who teaches American supernatural literature at the College of New Jersey and Rider University. Since the Harry Potter books are British, he does not teach those, but analyzes them on his own.  

“I enjoy the symbols in the books and how they can be poetic,” he said. “The basic story is about a boy who is alienated and then becomes part of a larger community. It shows that friendship can help overcome adversity and that’s a very powerful message for children to learn.”

Schwartz appreciates the Harry Potter books for helping his children develop a love of reading and learning from a very early age.

“The books develop a power of imagination that sparks creativity,” he said. “As a family we read and discuss the books together. The kids love to play make believe and they’ll pretend to do magic.”

Victoria Wayland, 12, an eighth grader at John Witherspoon Middle School appreciates how well the books are written and is inspired by the true life story of J.K. Rowling who was a struggling single mother when she created the book that changed the world.

“Did you know that she first wrote her story on a napkin,” Victoria said, with a touch of awe.

The Harry Potter phenomenon carried over from books to film and kept the circulation desk at the Princeton Public Library busy for years with a constant stream of readers hungry to devour the newest chapters in the continuing saga. Conlon believes that Rowling and her band of magical friends helped encourage a love of reading across generations.

“Our used book sales at the library are very busy and people are reading more than ever before," Conlon said. "Part of it is that there are more ways to read now, with a Kindle, the Nook, on an iPad. But part of it is also because of great stories like Harry Potter.”

And just because the Harry Potter saga is coming to an end, it doesn’t mean that he will ever be forgotten.

“As long as people are loyal to Harry and keep on reading the books, he will never be gone from this world,” said Shatzkin.