Harry Potter Night at Eight Cousins (Trip Report)

Last Friday night, I talked to dozens of wizards, Death Eaters, and dementors. (Okay, some of the dementors didn't talk much, but you know how they are. Too busy soul-sucking for ordinary pleasantries.) I was the guest author at Harry Potter Night at Eight Cousins Bookstore in Falmouth, Massachusetts, and it was very cool.

This was no ordinary Harry Potter party. The whole street got in on the act as Main Street was transformed into Diagon Alley, with each store assuming the identity of its Potterian equivalent. Tons of kids (and adults) dressed up in costume. There was a parade. And a scavenger hunt. And quidditch matches! And I got to park myself right in the middle of it and try to talk people into buying a second (much more purple) book that night. Here's a photo of me at the event:


My secret weapon for drawing in the crowds: a big bowl of candy that I kept filled to the brim! (It's obscured from view in the photo by a girl who's perusing the candy selection.) I refilled that bowl at least five times. Apparently, wizards like candy. A lot.

Eight Cousins is a fabulous bookstore, and I had a wonderful time. I may not have sold as many books as JK that night, but I sold out the bookstore's stock and had a lot of fun doing it. And, of course, I picked up my very own copy of HP7!

(For those of you who are wondering, the safety-pin/bobby-pin method actually worked! The hat stayed on my head the entire night. Whoo-hoo!)

Eight Cousins and Harry Potter

This Friday, I will be reading from and signing copies of INTO THE WILD at Eight Cousins, a children's bookstore in Falmouth, Massachusetts, as part of their Harry Potter Night festivities. Here are the details:

FRIDAY JULY 20 at 9pm
Eight Cousins Bookstore
189 Main Street, Falmouth, MA

The bookstore owner suggested that I come in costume. Ah-ha, I thought, a perfect time to try on my gorilla suit!


Did you know there's a National Gorilla Suit Day? Google told me there was, so it must be true. It's on January 31st. Anyway, I quickly realized that the costume is supposed to be at least loosely connected to either my book or Harry Potter 7, and to the best of my knowledge, there's no gorilla in either. (Or is there??? According to the HP7 spoilers I've read on Maureen Johnson's blog, JK made some surprising choices in writing HP7. Apparently, Rowling lost interest in Harry and elected to leave him out of the final novel altogether!)

So... my costume... To be honest, I kind of panicked about this for a little while. Coming up with costumes is not my forte. (Click here to read my blog post about Halloween, the most stressful of holidays.) But I think I'm almost all set now. I have borrowed a witch's hat from my mother-in-law (no joke intended) and a British academic robe from my husband, and I plan to drape a garland of fake ivy around my neck -- kind of a Harry-Potter-meets-the-Wild sort of theme.

Only problem is that I'm not exactly sure how to affix the witch's hat to my head. My hair is a bit, shall we say, fluffy. Hats tend to pop off my head as if my hair were spring-loaded. There isn't a clear place to use bobby pins on the hat either. So I'm thinking some sort of safety-pin-and-bobby-pin arrangement. Anyone have any better ideas? Nothing involving glue or staple-guns, please. Also, when people ask what I'm dressed as, what should I say?

Anyway, if you're in Cape Cod this weekend, I hope you'll swing by Eight Cousins on Friday night and say hi! Should be a fun party. Harry. Me. What more could you ask for?