Child Books’ Wizard to Conjure Up a Crowd

Harry Potter mania is about to descend on Irvine.

Bracing for an onslaught of 800 or more fans of the phenomenally popular book series about an orphaned wizard, Alexandra Uhl has lined up three security guards for her Whale of a Tale Children’s Bookshoppe when British author J.K. Rowling arrives Monday for a two-hour signing from 4 to 6 p.m.

Uhl expects the largest turnout ever for an author’s appearance at her 12-year-old bookstore in University Center across Campus Drive from UC Irvine. To cope with the crowds seeking individually signed copies, she plans to start handing out numbers to customers when the 2,000-square-foot shop opens at 10 a.m. Monday.

“It’s overwhelming,” said Uhl, who has been flooded with telephone calls from fans of the series since she learned her shop was on Rowling’s promotional itinerary three months ago.

The Irvine Police Department doesn’t anticipate any traffic problems, however. A spokesman said University Center has lots of parking and can easily accommodate 800 people.

The 33-year-old Rowling, who was an unemployed, divorced mother who wrote her first book in longhand over coffee in Edinburgh cafes, has grown accustomed to drawing large crowds for her appearances. At a book-signing in Washington this week, fans waited in line up to eight hours to have her autograph their books. She is said to be able to sign 400 books an hour.

Rowling’s first best-selling Harry Potter book, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” was published in the United States in 1998. It was followed by “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” in June. The latest, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban,” went on sale Sept. 8 and immediately soared to the top of the nation’s best-seller lists.

Uhl has sold hundreds of copies of the new book, which she said “is definitely the No. 1 seller” at her store.

“Harry Potter is just a magical character,” she said. “From the minute you start reading the book, you’re absorbed in it. The books have gripped the interest and imagination of children--and adults, really.”

Uhl isn’t sure why Rowling’s publisher, Scholastic Press, chose Whale of a Tale as one of only five Southland bookstores the author will visit. (Rowling also will do signings in San Marino, Ventura, West Los Angeles and Thousand Oaks.)

But Whale of a Tale has hosted many book signings, and Uhl believes the volume of copies of Rowling’s new book sold at her store had something to do with it. She and her employees also have taken a personal interest in championing Harry Potter’s latest adventure.

“We’ve got the readers excited about it,” she said.

A day doesn’t go by, she said, without calls from grateful parents thanking her for recommending the Harry Potter books to their children.

“We’ve had a lot of [otherwise] reluctant readers who have been picking up the books,” she said. “They’re very anxious to read these books.”

Uhl isn’t sure when Harry Potter fans will begin arriving at her shop Monday, but judging by one call Friday it could be early: “A lady asked if there were bathroom facilities for the early morning,” she said.

Rowling will sign from 4 to 6 p.m. Monday at Whale of a Tale Children’s Bookshoppe in the University Center, 4199 Campus Drive, (949) 854-8288.