For your viewing pleasure, over 100 pictures from Harry Potter Cover to Cover Day:
Some things of note:
— Carly H. STACKS Staffer
If you've been watching, I'm sure you saw that Harry Potter Cover to Cover Day ended about an hour ago — with Harry's first year of Hogwarts over and Harry telling Ron, "They [the Dursley's] don't know we're not allowed to use magic at home. I'm going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer . . . " Little does he know what he's in for over the next six years.
We're luckier than Harry: as the team that put this event together wished everyone a good night, they had a very exciting announcement. They're already getting ready to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets next year with another amazing event!
If you missed the live webcast, here are some of this morning's highlights already up for you to watch:
We'll be putting up all of our pictures from today's event by the end of the week, and in the next few weeks we'll also have a full video archive of everyone reading. So stay tuned for the rest of the wrap-up!
But it's time to say goodbye for today. As we were leaving the Scholastic lobby, the chair was already coming down, so Cover to Cover Day is truly over.
And since you've all seen what I had to say about today, I want to know what YOU think! Did you have fun today (either here or at home)?
— Carly H. STACKS Staffer
If you've been watching, you know that the book has been rushing by. I can't believe we're almost at the end of the book, and no one else can either. We were thinking that it would go at least another few hours, but I guess Book 1 really is shorter than everyone remembered.
And with the book speeding by, we've had a ton of different people here reading. Some, you might even recognize:
Marcia Gay Harden
Jill Zarin from Real Housewives of New York on Bravo
I'll be back with another post at the end of the event (keep an eye out for all of our pictures from the event later in the week, plus the full video on www.scholastic.com/harrypotter/ in the next couple of weeks). But for now I'm getting back to watching.
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
There's been a whirlwind of people reading this afternoon. Check it out!
Some very young:
Some very famous:
Kurt Loder from MTV
KayCee Stroh from High School Musical 3
But all very big fans:
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
The read-a-thon took a break so all of us who were here all day could eat lunch. I've spent all day sitting next to the Harry Potter display case in the lobby, in the perfect position to spend time looking at the cauldron of Every Flavor Beans, so I was more than ready for lunch time. But we're back, well-fed and ready for the rest of the book.
We're picking up at Chapter 12. This is thee chapter with the Mirror of Erised, which always makes me think. What would I see in the mirror? Fame? Fortune? Socks? I'm not sure I know.
What about you? What would you see in the Mirror of Erised?
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
Sorry if I've been gone a while — if it has in fact been a while (I don't really know how long it was between other posts). Fellow blogger Nancy stopped by, and we took our turns reading!
Reading in the throne is certainly an experience. You start by signing a release to be on the webcast, you get assigned a few passages, and then you wait. And then you keep waiting. While waiting, you're supposed to look over the section you're reading. Everyone reads from a set of books that are marked up with lines separating numbered sections. When you get your sections to read, they also put in little sticky-notes pointing to where you start and stop so that everyone reads exactly the right amount.
And then finally, it's your turn to read. When I was here during set-up, the only way into the window was to climb (with help) up to the platform. But now they have the red-carpet stairs set up so it's easy to climb on there. Once you're in the window, it's like you're in a separate world. The heavy red curtains that they seemed to be setting up forever block all outside noise. It makes sense now that I think about it: there are two microphones in there for the webcast, and they only want to pick up the reader's voice, not everything else. There are also bright lights for the webcast — so bright that you're blinded to everything outside the curtains.
The throne was comfortable enough, but to be honest, I barely noticed that the chair I was sitting on was special. When I was just watching, I would have thought that would be impossible — the throne seems huge and overwhelming. But once you're sitting in it, you realize it's as comfortable as the armchair in your living room.
And then, you read. Since the book is being read in order, unless you're particularly lucky, no passage is any better than any other. Mine had "Seamus" in it, which means I needed to remember it's pronounced SHAY-mus and not SEE-mus, which is how I pronounce it in my head.
Were any of you here? What did you think about reading? If you're watching from home, does the experience look like I described it?
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
So, something I'm learning is that it's really hard to keep up with the current chapter! Even though this blog post title says Chapter 6 because that's where we currently are in the reading of the book, my exciting moment of the moment actually comes from the reading of Chapter 5:
There are some Scholastic News Kid Reporters here from Rwanda to report on the First Kids Gorilla Summit on Friday (which will be webcast live at www.scholastic.com/miza). And they were here to read their part of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:
Rwanda is probably the farthest spot that today's participants are from, but there was another group on vacation from Spain. It's hard to tell if someone is here from another country until they get up there and read in a wonderful accent (I, sadly, only speak English and have a plain, boring American accent), so I don't have a picture of them. But there's well over half the book left, so I'm sure there are plenty of pictures left to come.
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
Another blogger to the rescue! Karen came by and took some wonderful pictures of the read-a-thon so far.
The stack of books with each reader's passage marked off:
The sign to get in line (hey! that rhymes!):
The forms to be on the webcast:
And most important of all: fans ready to read!
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
You guys have the perfect view of the event on the webcast. Here, it's so crowded, you can barely see the reading.
Filling up the lobby, we have a ton of Scholastic employee volunteers:
A camera crew filming for the webcast:
The crew's equipment:
The line of people waiting to read:
And of course, the assorted other people watching (like me!). I've always thought the Scholastic lobby was huge, but it's not big enough for the phenomenon that is Harry Potter.
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
You know, I used to re-read Harry Potter on a regular basis. I was the type of fan that would have been here at 8 am if it were 5 years ago. Then I started working at Scholastic and there's been so much Harry in my life, I stopped re-reading the books for pleasure. So it's been a really long time since I re-read the books just for myself.
In fact, the last time I read them just for fun was last summer, when Book 7 came out. The Harry in my head is that Harry, the 17-year-old, who's seen loss, who has the world and war weighing down on him. It's been a long time since I experienced the 11-year-old Harry, where magic isn't a responsibility but an escape. Long before Harry was the savior of the wizarding world (or before he knew he was, at any rate), he was just a kid experiencing the same wonder as the reader at the mysterious, magical things happening around him. And sitting here listening to Harry talk to a snake for the first time, I'm experiencing that enchantment all over again
Plus, the people reading do the best character voices! I think my favorite so far is the girl with the great Dudley voice, reading, "He always spoils everything!" with the perfect whine. "He! Always! Spoils! Everything!"
Are you watching? What do you think so far?
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
Three minutes and counting until the start of Harry Potter Cover to Cover Day, and there's already a line of people waiting to read. Unfortunately, I forgot the cord to connect my camera to the computer at home this morning, so the early morning pictures are Blackberry quality (think camera phone quality).
Arthur Levine is here, ready to kick off the event.
I can't see much from my seat.
Luckily, I have a laptop to watch on.
And it all starts with: "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much . . ."
— Carly H., STACKS Staffer
Things are really heating up at Scholastic for the read-a-thon! Press releases are out to invite the media to attend, and we have arranged for some "mystery celebrities" to help us read. We haven't revealed the names of these special guests to the public yet, but we're letting you Ink Splot 26 readers in on the secret!
Stop by and you might see KayCee Stroh from High School Musical 3, the academy award winner Marcia Gay Harden, Kurt Loder from MTV as well as Jill Zarin from Real Housewives of New York on Bravo. How cool is that!!
Look forward to seeing you all at the read-a-thon — remember: Tuesday, September 23rd, right here at Scholastic in SoHo. And if you can't get here, catch us online at www.scholastic.com/readharry!
— Sara, Scholastic Media Relations
