There is reason to celebrate this week for Westbrook’s wizards and muggles – that’s non-magical folk for those unfamiliar with J.K. Rowling’s brand of literary sorcery.

The Walker Memorial Library will soon be home to a special copy of the global bestseller “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.”

While millions of copies of J.K. Rowling’s book about the adventures of a teenaged wizard are in print, the Westbrook library will soon be the only one in Maine that will be able to boast of a copy signed by Rowling herself.

Children’s Librarian Pat Larrabee said the library was notified last week that it had won the coveted book through a contest by Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter series.

Larrabee said anyone could enter the contest on behalf of their local library, and after she sent in the first entry, Library Clerk Jo Adamo, Circulation Clerk Dori Hawxwell and Student Aide Christia Anne Beasley spread the word, and gathered about 50 more entries on the library’s behalf, Larrabee said.

After the entries were mailed out in two separate packages to avoid the possibility of the entries being lost, it was a matter of waiting for the results of the random drawing.

In Rowling’s books, wizards use owls to deliver the news, but since uncaged birds are not allowed in public libraries, Larrabee got the good news over an ordinary telephone line. Even as she was talking to the Scholastic representative over the phone, Larrabee said she had a hard time comprehending that the library had won.

“When the woman from Scholastic called, I thought, ‘Can this really be?'” she said.

The book will be arriving in the near future by truck, not broomstick, Larrabee said. Once it arrives at the library, Larrabee said it would not be placed in circulation. Instead, the book will be locked up in a special display case so everyone can see it. (There was no word whether any special spells or hexes would be placed on the case to provide additional protection from dark witches or wizards who may want to take possesion of the book.)

The signed Potter book is a rarity. Since the series has exploded in popularity, Rowling has stopped signing books because there is no way she could meet up with the demand. On her official Web site, Rowling writes that she no longer signs books, except for charities and in special circumstances, like the Scholastic contest.

The Scholastic contest was held in celebration of the July 16 worldwide release date of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince”, the sixth book in the series that has been an international bestseller and has also spawned a series of blockbuster movies. A library in West Asheville, N.C., won the grand prize, which was the first American edition of the book, hand-signed by Rowling. The Walker Library won one of the additional prizes presented to libraries in each of the other 49 states – a special edition of the book with a bookplate signed by Rowling.

The Walker Library presently has six copies of “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” available for circulation, Larrabee said. The library bought five copies of the book, and a resident donated an additional copy to the library this week. Larrabee said all copies of the book have been checked out since it was released, and there is a waiting list. “It’s extremely popular,” she said.

Potter 1 With the excitement over the release of the latest installment of the Harry Potter series comes the good news that the Walker Memorial Library has won a copy of the book signed by the author J.K. Rowling. Pictured (from left) Library Clerk Jo Adamo, Childrent Aide Christia Anne Beasley and Circulation Clerk Dori Hawxwell hold up one of the library

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