Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Columnist Susan Snyder: Not just another Day at school

Twenty years from now, it's hard to say whether Laurie Day's pupils will remember the number of goal posts on a Quidditch field or the name of Harry Potter's owl.

But it's a pretty safe bet they will remember Day as the teacher who introduced them to books through the popular J.K. Rowling series, which she has been reading aloud to her Mendoza Elementary School classes for at least five years.

Friday night a dozen of Day's former pupils followed her to a Las Vegas Wal-Mart to buy "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" when it was released at midnight.

Day and her Potterheads planned to arrive around 10:45 p.m. At 10:30, the book-release line was composed of two people standing next to a Harry Potter cardboard cutout.

Not exactly the Potter party some stores hosted, which included raffles, costume contests, inflated jumping castles and food. One area book store even brought in Las Vegas magician Mac King.

At the Wal-Mart, an employee handed out Harry Potter quizzes and word searches and apologized for party plans that had fallen through at the last minute.

Not to worry. Just before 11 p.m. Day and five of her former students burst into the store. Seven more would arrive moments later.

"I brought my own party!" she announced, then looked in disbelief at the two people already in line.

"Oh, my gosh, you're the line? Two people? Yay! Yay!," she said, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

Day's Potter passion is real. And with it comes a talent for inspiring a generation of TV and computer-game junkies to read. It's infectious.

"I am sooooo excited, I can't stand it!" Day said.

Friday was a big day. Five of the students had finished fifth grade at Mendoza that afternoon, and Day had taught her last day there. This fall she'll teach fifth grade at Summerlin's Lummis Elementary School (lucky ducks).

Day began reading the Potter series aloud in her classroom in hopes of inspiring non-readers to open an book.

It worked. In 2000, all 37 of her third graders obtained and read on their own all 734 pages of the fourth Potter book -- in the last four weeks of school.

Tiffani Taylor, 11, has never seen a "Star Wars" movie. But she has read all the Potter books and a whole bunch of others because of Day.

"I'll remember her," Taylor said. "She's always been there for me."

Besides, the woman could make the back of a box of cereal sound exciting.

Around 11:30 p.m. Mendoza's library assistant, who was visiting Utah, called Day's cell phone. Day put her on speaker-phone.

"I've got the booook. Neener, neener neeee-ner," the voice on the phone said.

"How'd she do that?!" Jordan Tagle, 11, demanded.

"She's in Utah. They're an hour ahead," Day explained.

"The loser!" Tagle said.

But there were no losers. Tagle and Taylor had their noses in their books as they walked out of the store. (Actually, Tagle almost started a riot when he read the last page and announced that a particular character didn't die as many Potter fans expected.)

"I'm scared," Day said. "After the end of the series, I don't know what I'll have to inspire kids to read."

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