J.K. Rowling to read to L.A. schoolkids

September 11, 2007 | 12:31 pm

It's not just students who are eagerly anticipating J.K. Rowling's arrival in Los Angeles next month. The adults were pretty revved up as well about Monday's announcement of the 40 schools that each will send 40 lucky Harry Potter fans to an Oct. 15 event at the Kodak Theatre.

Rowling will read from "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," take questions and sign a book for each student. (Los Angeles will be one of only four U.S. stops on Rowling's "Open Book Tour" to promote the final book in the blockbuster series.)

The announcement of which L.A. Unified schools were chosen (randomly, it turns out, by local district administrators) was made at Nobel Middle School in Northridge, where assistant principal Rebecca Huffman welcomed the hubbub.

"A lot of the teachers are as excited as the kids," Huffman said, adding that teachers at her school will hold an essay contest to choose the attendees. Huffman expects several hundred entries from among the school's 2,300 students, and she added that, as a reader of six or so books a week, she welcomes the excitement. "I think any kind of reading ... helps in their education."

Over at Berendo Middle School in the L.A.'s West Adams area, principal Bob Bilovsky echoed Huffman's thrill at his school being chosen. Like his fellow 39 fellow principals, Bilovsky has an automatic invite to the event and was pretty excited at the prospect of being at Rowling's reading.

"I marvel at this person's imagination," Bilovsky said, adding that he looks forward "to being able to meet someone who created this whole world." And, since he gets to take two teachers or administrators with him, he said, "everyone wants to be my best friend."

Orli Low

Jacket Copy

Books, authors and all things bookish

J.K. Rowling to read to L.A. schoolkids