Are you from House Gryffindor? What about House Ravenclaw? Maybe you have traits of House Slytherin or House Hufflepuff.
No matter the affiliation, all were welcomed Thursday evening as the Elizabethton-Carter County Public Library kicked off their events for the school year by celebrating the first day of school at Hogwarts described in the Harry Potter book and movie series.
“It’s the first day of Hogwarts,” Children’s Librarian Ashlee Williams said. “To celebrate that, we hosted this event as our kick off for events we’ll have going on during the school year.”
And as the children filed in, Williams liked what she saw from the recent attendees of Hogwarts.
“We’re very pleased with the amount of kids we have out here this evening,” she said. “We hope to make this an annual event.”
The newest batch of students for Hogwarts had a plethora of activities to choose from. Whether it was receiving books, creating wands or studying herbology – no stone was left unturned.
After a busy day at the office, Williams, Bernie Weese and other members of the staff helped the children at the different stations and served as instructors, of sorts, for the “first day of school”.
Enjoying literature different series, like Harry Potter, makes these types of events come with an amount of fun during the preparation stage, Weese said.
“Everybody here if kind of a nerd,” she added with a laugh. “Everybody was definitely super excited to help get all this stuff together. Whether it was getting glass bottles for the potions or helping to print out and cut stuff … everybody was super excited to help out.”
Thursday’s event is just one of a variety that the library will be working on in the next two months, Williams said.
“We’re going to have a very active month in month of September,” she added. “We’re also going to be active in October with the downtown trick-or-treating. We have a lot of events planned with the Parks and Rec department and different partners.”
Throughout the month of September, the library is scheduled to celebrate the birthdays of different authors and book characters, including Curious George, Roald Dahl, and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See.
But as far as events like Thursday’s, Williams added the library is looking at doing other types for books like the Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings and Alice in Wonderland.