Hold a magical ‘Harry Potter’ reading group

You'd like to start a book club for your children, but you're worried it won't be interesting for them. Relax. A new book, "The Kids’ Book Club Book" by Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp, gives parents ideas on how to choose age appropriate books and how to make reading books fun for children. The book contains suggestions for serving snacks, organizing activities, making props, and discussing the books' main topics. One of the books the authors offer ideas for is J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince." Here's an excerpt on the sixth book in the popular series:

Grades 4 and up
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
J. K. Rowling
Scholastic, 2005
Available in paperback from Scholastic
652 pages
Fantasy

Series: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Scholastic, 1997), also published as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Bloomsbury, 1996); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Scholastic, 1999); Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Scholastic, 1999); Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Scholastic, 2000); Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Scholastic, 2003); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Scholastic, 2007)

As Harry Potter enters his sixth year at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, nonwizards and wizards alike are threatened by attacks from Death Eaters, followers of the evil Lord Voldemort. When a returning Potions professor, Horace Slughorn, gives Harry a textbook formerly owned by the mysterious Half-Blood Prince, Harry consults the handwritten notes in the book—and suddenly begins to excel in the class. Headmaster Albus Dumbledore uses a memory device, the Pensieve, to show Harry flashbacks of Lord Voldemort’s past. As Harry and Dumbledore explore Voldemort’s life, they are drawn further into their quest to understand his immortality and ultimately to defeat him.

AUTHOR SCOOP
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is one of J. K. Rowling’s favorite books in the series: “Book Six does what I wanted it to do and even if nobody else likes it (and some won’t) I know it will remain one of my favourites of the series. Ultimately you have to please yourself before you please anyone else,” Rowling writes.

Rowling says she had considered using a chapter much like “The Other Minister,” the opening chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, in several other Harry Potter books. When you read the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, says Rowling, you should know that “it’s been about thirteen years in the brewing.”

The Pensieve, or memory storage device Dumbledore uses in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, reflects reality and does not give the memory owner’s interpretation of an event. Rather, explains Rowling, the Pensieve re-creates a moment, as if you could delve into your own memory and relive things you hadn’t noticed.

• One of Rowling’s favorite childhood books was Elizabeth Goudge’s A Little White Horse, originally published in 1946. The fact that “the feasts at Hogwarts are fulsomely described” and that Rowling knows what her characters eat, she says, is due to Goudge’s influence.
• Rowling says Harry’s maturity has been gradual, but she’s not sorry to see Harry and his friends grow up. “I have always found it slightly sinister when you read children’s books in which the children are not allowed any romantic feelings and are not allowed to get angry,” she explains.

Author website: www.jkrowling.com

BOOK BITES
Chocolate Cauldrons
Romilda Vane, Harry’s classmate, has a crush on him, and gives Harry a box of firewhiskey-filled Chocolate Cauldrons. When Harry’s friend Ron Weasley mistakenly eats the Cauldrons, believing them to be one of his own birthday gifts, he begins to profess his love for Romilda. It becomes clear to Harry that Romilda has concealed love potion within the chocolates, intended for Harry, and he brings Ron to Professor Slughorn to reverse the spell.

Nur Kilic, owner of Serenade Chocolatier in Brookline, Massachusetts, makes handmade chocolates in the Viennese tradition and created a delicious Chocolate Cauldrons recipe for us to share with Harry Potter fans. These cauldrons can be filled with your favorite candies (instead of firewhiskey), and they are certain to cast a spell on the lucky eater!

NOTE: In order to make a cauldron from chocolate, you need some form of a mold. You can use the plastic cauldrons that party stores sell during Halloween and cut each in half along the seam, from the top edge to the bottom, or you can purchase a plastic cauldron mold online (www.onestopcandle.com). We also created cauldron shapes by pouring the liquid chocolate into plastic containers for cupcakes commonly sold in grocery stores.

In candy making, chocolate should be tempered in order for it to release easily from the molds; the process also gives the chocolate a glossy sheen, keeps it from becoming streaked with cocoa butter crystals that might form, and gives it a smooth flavor. In tempering, a portion of the chocolate is melted, cooled slightly, and then the remainder of the chocolate is added and reheated. Temperatures are very critical in the tempering process so a candy thermometer is necessary.

• 1 pound milk or dark chocolate
• Cocoa powder for dusting

1. Chop the chocolate on a cutting board with a large knife. Heat water in the bottom portion of a double boiler. The water should be hot, but not boiling. Place half of the chopped chocolate in the top pot of the double boiler. Stir until the chocolate is melted
2. Remove the chocolate from the heat. Add the remaining chopped chocolate to melted chocolate, stirring until chocolate reaches 88–90° F. Pour the chocolate into a mold until mold is full. Place the mold in the refrigerator 5 minutes, or until the chocolate begins to set along the perimeter of the mold. The center should still be liquid.
3. Remove the liquid chocolate by inverting the mold over the pot. (You can reuse this chocolate for another mold, as long as it is maintained at 88° to 90° F., and stirred.) Scrape the top of the mold with a spatula. Place the mold with the remaining chocolate in the refrigerator for 15 minutes, or until the chocolate is firm. When the chocolate is set, it will release from the mold easily.
4. Remove the chocolate from the mold. Dust with cocoa powder to give it a rustic look.
5. Fill with your favorite candies or sweet drink!

YIELD: 4–12 CAULDRONS, DEPENDING ON THE SIZE OF THE MOLD

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