Harry Potter Works His Magic on Shoppers

There was feasting (cherry licorice and gum balls). There were trivia games with contestants screaming the answers. Faces were painted with red lightning bolts above the bridge of the nose. The fashion accessory of choice: a pair of black-rimmed, round glasses. Then, as the giddy crowd gathered round, the countdown to midnight began. Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven! Six! Five! Four! Three! Two! One!

BONGGGGG! A gong was struck. The crowd cheered.

And they said folks in Los Angeles didn’t know how to celebrate the stroke of midnight.

Well, they do if they’re awaiting something apparently more momentous than the turn of the millennium. At the Barnes & Noble store on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena--as in most of the English-speaking world--that would be the unveiling at 12:01 a.m. Saturday of the newest Harry Potter book.

“I have to get this book,” said Cameron Quinn, 12, a “Potter connoisseur” from Pasadena. “It’s a necessity.” Three hundred people waiting in the store with him agreed.

The frenzy over the arrival of the children’s book was fueled by clever promotional campaigns--the book could not be acquired by anyone before the wee hours of July 8--and insatiable fans of all ages.

They were eager to dip back into the world of the orphan Harry, who didn’t realize he had magical powers until he began a long course of study at the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry, now 14, continues his coming of age in the newest installment, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” the fourth of a planned seven-part series by British author J.K. Rowling. It weighs in at 734 pages.

After the gong sounded at Barnes & Noble in Pasadena, staffers dressed as wizards rushed in with rolling carts of books like paramedics wheeling gurneys into emergency rooms. As children received their books, they sighed and rocked them gratefully in their arms.

“Harry Potter has problems real kids do,” said Shannon Gleason, 13, of Hollywood, “like teachers and bullies.”

Parents were unfazed by the late hour. “Anything to encourage him to keep reading,” said Nancy Ruiz of Alhambra, who let her 11-year-old son, Nicholas, stay up to purchase his book.

Throughout Southern California, bookstores burned the midnight oil. The Barnes & Noble on the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica sold out its entire supply--which general manager Christine Campbell would quantify only as “hundreds and hundreds”--between midnight and 1 a.m.

A line of about 300 stretched out the door at the Borders Books and Music store at the Northridge Fashion Center at midnight.

Fans dropped names of the book’s characters as if they were talking about friends or family. “I want to see if Harry Potter really finds out what happens to his parents and I want Voldemort to die,” said Alyssa Snow, 12, of Northridge. “He’s really bad and been in three books already.”

At Crown Books in Santa Monica, the supply of 1,000 was only half depleted by noon Saturday--good news for desperate callers. “You can hear the panic in their voices: ‘Do you have any Harry Potters left?’ ” said salesperson Janet Schaefer. “Yes, we do. Come on down.”

Paula Heartland of Malibu brought her 10-year-old daughter, Jenna, to Borders in the morning to pick up their newest Potter book. “My husband, my daughter and I get in bed and read them together. We love it,” said Heartland.

“I relate to Harry Potter. Harry’s a wizard and he doesn’t know it until he’s 10. In the first book, he blows up his aunt and he doesn’t know how he did it. As a 10-year-old, I had to rescue someone one time who was dying and it felt like I had superhuman powers.”

Alison Piazza, 11, begged her mother, Johanna Keogh, to bring her to the bookstore as early as possible. “We could have come at 9 or 4:30 p.m.,” said Alison, who lives in Pacific Palisades. “I said, ‘No, we’re coming at 9.’ ” Alison explained how she became a fan. “I read the first page of the first one I got and thought, ‘Oh, I want to read this.’ They’re sort of mesmerizing.”

By the magazine rack, Rick Moss quizzed his 11-year-old niece, Rebekah Moss, on a Harry Potter crossword puzzle.

“Helpful house elf,” said Moss, reading a clue.

“Dobby,” said Rebekah, barely ruffling a brain cell.

“Three-headed guard dog,” said Moss.

“Fluffy.”

“Harry’s special broomstick,” said Moss.

“Nimbus 2000.”

“That was the one thing Harry picked up naturally,” said Moss, who seemed to know as much Potter trivia as his niece. “He didn’t even need a lesson.”

Estimates varied among the book buyers over how long it would take them to read the fat tome.

“At most, a month,” said Aaron Squier, 8.

“A month?” objected his father, Gary. “You read all three of the others in a month.”

“Two months,” said Jenna Heartland.

“Two weeks, at least,” said Rebekah Moss.

There was no variation on when they would all start reading: immediately.

“I might even start reading it in the car,” said Alison Piazza.

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Times staff writers Roberto Manzano, Matthew Ebnet and Monte Morin contributed to this story.