Scholastic Hosts ‘Harry Potter’ Cover to Cover Read-A-Thon
By Debra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 9/23/2008 9:23:00 PM
Some 600 muggles of all ages gathered in New York City yesterday for a cover to cover read-a-thon to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the U.S. release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Scholastic, 1998), the first of seven books in the hugely popular series by J. K. Rowling.
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A young Harry fan reads at the daylong event. |
Those who read aloud while received a special commemorative Harry Potter anniversary souvenir, and the first 100 fans who read received a free copy of the special anniversary edition of the Sorcerer’s Stone.
One loyal fan showed up at Scholastic’s headquarters at 3 a.m., and by 5 a.m. there were more than 30 people, most of whom were dressed in Potter-related garb, says the publisher’s spokeswoman Kyle Good.
Although most attendees were from the New York tri-state area and others from places like California, Washington, and North Carolina, the read-a-thon also drew fans from Rwanda, Nairobi, Mexico, Paris and Israel.
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Fans gather outside Scholastic offices in NYC. |
There were viewers in Barcelona, a teacher in Italy emailed to say that she was watching it with her class, and one man who attended the event called his daughter in Poland to tell her to tune in.
“We had one teacher who showed up who is a teacher at a school uptown. Her class was watching it, so she got on the train and came down here to read so her class could see her,” says Scholastic’s Tyler Reed. “A school librarian [also] hooked up a big screen in his library so he could show the Webcast live all day.”
Stay tuned. Next September, Scholastic plans to host the 10th anniversary celebration of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (1999).
