Kids grill "experts" during second Harry Potter trivia quiz.
By: Jennifer Potash
The password for the Gryffindor House common room?
How many whacks of a dull ax did it take to kill a certain character?
What is Harry Potter’s middle name?
These questions were among those lobbed at a panel of teen-age "experts" by Harry Potter on Monday in Princeton Public Library.
More than 30 elementary school kids showed up at the library with lists of questions on notebook paper and index cards, aiming to stump the panel.
The event was the second trivia game conjured up by the library’s Teen Advisory Board, comprised of local kids, grades 6 through 12.
The advisory board meets with Susan Conlon, the library’s teen services librarian, to suggest programs as well as materials for the library’s collection. In February the advisory board held the first Harry Potter trivia challenge, in which the board members supplied the questions to teams of participants competing for prizes.
For a change of format, this time the library’s resident Harry Potter experts were quizzed by the audience. The panel consisted of advisory board members, summer volunteers and just hardcore fans of J. K. Rowling’s book series.
Rebecca Saltzman, 10, and Charlotte Wampold, 10, both students at Riverside Elementary School, stumped the panel with their question about the age of the malevolent character Lucius Malfoy, father of Draco, Harry Potter’s nemesis and classmate.
The panel conferred and guessed age 43, but the correct answer was 41.
Chrislyn Choo, 10, a Community Park Elementary School student, stumped the experts on several of her questions. Her technique was to think up the questions and then go back and research the answers in the books.
After half an hour of questions from the eager audience, panelist Catriona McCormack, a Princeton High School student, admitted that the panel was "stumped so many times."
Some questions were easily answered by the teen panel, however often accompanied by a roll of the eyes.
"Oh, please," prodded Samantha Hamilton, a Princeton High School junior, who dressed up as Professor Minerva McGonagall.
One would-be stumper, 10-year-old Carlton Smith, posed a question that Youth Services library Susan Conlon quickly overrode.
The question-that-shall-not-be asked was: Which character dies in the fifth Harry Potter novel?
Carlton, who also had other questions, said that he has read each Harry Potter book twice.
The Harry Potter phenomenon remains enormously popular.
In February, the library’s first trivia program proved so popular that the Teen Advisory Board repeated it in April at Riverside School at the request of the school’s Parent Teacher Organization.
Another compelling clue?
Almost all the library’s 35 copies of the latest installment in J.K. Rowling’s series, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, are checked out.