Laura Power
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 5, 2007

RANKIN INLET - Terrie Kusugak was seven years old when she was first taken away by the magic of the Harry Potter books.

Now, at 13, she was given a chance to attend a reading by J.K. Rowling, the author of the books, in person.

The contest she entered, as explained by Kim Crockatt of the Nunavut Literacy Council, required entrants to write a 200-word essay about why they enjoyed the Harry Potter series.

"We wanted to do something to promote reading and we wanted to make sure that the people were entering the contest were people who actually read the Harry Potter books as opposed to just seeing the movies," she said.

There were 26 entrants between the ages of nine and 15, but Kusugak's came out on top.

"Terrie's really stood out because she sent in a really interesting little essay about how when she was reading the books, one of her favourite characters was Hagrid," said Crockatt. "And she really thought he was neat because when she read about him she thought he must have been like the Tuniit people who lived in Nunavut before the modern Inuit."

Kusugak explained why she was so eager to win the competition.

"I wanted to go because I've been in Rankin for a long time and you see all the same people, you meet the same people, you talk to the same people and even just to get out is good," she said. "Plus you get to see J.K. Rowling. You get to go meet the person that had pretty much the whole world talking."

Kusugak was one of 900 people from across the country that sat in the Toronto auditorium as J.K. Rowling read from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

She was the only person from Nunavut to attend.

"It was a huge theatre. It was well, colossal you could say, and pretty much every seat was filled and J.K. Rowling came and sat down on a chair on the stage and she read a chapter of her latest book," recounted Kusugak.

During the reading, Kusugak made an observation about the use of imagination when reading.

"When you read a book, you read how you think it is," she said. "When the actual author reads it, she says it and reads it how it's supposed to be, so it's different from your first thoughts."

After the reading, each of the attendees got to meet the author and get an autographed copy.

"Kids who are readers are sort of at that age group - there may be a lot of peer pressure to do other things," said Crockatt. "We really think it's important that kids know that it's cool to read, too. It's a great thing and good things happen to you."