Without a hint of the self-consciousness usually associated with teenagers, Dawn Rae Madsen, 13, walked through the Lynnwood branch of the Sno-Isle Libraries last week dressed in a wizard's robe and carrying five Harry Potter books, a Harry Potter scrapbook and a bag of Bertie Bott's unusually flavored jelly beans.

Madsen will not wait for the library system to work its way through 1,152 holds already placed on "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the latest in the phenomenally successful J.K. Rowling series about a boy wizard, his school of magic and his friends.

Instead, she has placed an advance order at the Lynnwood Barnes & Noble store, which has so many customer orders for the book that it will get the chain's largest West Coast shipment — more than 2,000 copies — before the book's July 16 release, Assistant Manager Roseann Holm said.

At the Sno-Isle Libraries, the challenge will be finding alternative titles for those children, and not so few adults, on the waiting list.

The library has ordered 295 copies of the latest installment in print, compact disc, cassette, large print and Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese editions, said Terry Beck, the manager of adult/teen services.

Local libraries and bookstores are planning parties and stocking up on other fantasy titles in anticipation of the book's release.

Though some of the excitement is fueled by a marketing machine eager to cash in on books, movies and dozens of product tie-ins, it is also fueled by the devotion of kids such as Madsen who are growing up with Harry Potter.

"It fascinates me that it's a story about teenagers going through normal life but with other stuff on their minds, like saving the world," said Madsen, who got hooked on the series two years ago.

Teachers and librarians say the books' adventurous plots and richly imagined universe are turning indifferent students into readers and casual readers into critical thinkers.

"This is an audience that reads and rereads," Beck said. "They're becoming good little researchers. They go back to the books to look for clues."

They are also compulsive readers. Madsen plans to pick up her copy right after midnight, when many bookstores will release the new edition, and read it straight through.

Librarians say they've had parents describe trying to feed their children, who have so immersed themselves in the Harry Potter books that they don't eat.

The books were among the hottest items on school library shelves this past school year. Gregg Elder, a librarian at Evergreen Middle School in Everett, said a shelf that holds seven copies of each of the previous five books is typically empty. The six Spanish copies also are continually checked out.

What teenagers find in the books, he said, is a version of their own experience: the confusion of adolescence, conflicts with friends and the longing to grow up and get out of an awkward phase.

Teenagers would also love to live in a world where they could cast spells on classmates and make a particularly insufferable relative explode.

"All of us wish we had that wand," Elder said.

The Harry Potter books also are the most frequently checked out at Brier Terrace Middle School in the Edmonds School District, Principal Bill Fritz said.

The school tests students' reading comprehension with a computer program that includes hundreds of titles. Students questioned about the Harry Potter books remembered more and understood better than they did on other tested books. And the Harry Potter test was the most frequently taken on the program all year.

"These aren't easy books to read," Fritz said. "We're finding that kids who read Harry Potter are delving into more complicated literature."

Not all kids love Harry Potter, said Brier Terrace teacher Jodie Laing. But she said she has noticed some students, boys in particular, who used to sit in class pretending to read, actually turning the pages of the series.

Like her colleague at Evergreen Middle School, Laing sees students relating to the books, each of which chronicles another year at Hogwarts boarding school.

"They know the kid who's picked on but tries hard, the kid who's a jerk but thinks he's special." And, Laing added, there's that weird candy.

At a display in the Lynnwood Library, the staff members list their favorite magical pet, favorite Hogwarts class and their least favorite flavors of Bertie Bott's jelly beans. Brussels sprouts and diesel were two.

As she paused near the display, Madsen fished in her bag of jelly beans, plucked out one, and grimaced as she chewed.

"Grass," she said.

It seems a measure of readers' devotion to the series that purely imaginary details, such as robes and magical candy, actually exist now in the world of Muggles, the disappointingly prosaic realm of the nonmagical.

Everett Children's Librarian Dorothy Matsui said the Harry Potter books have become part of the identity of a whole generation of children.

"It's almost a rite of passage, a point of shared experience," she said. "All these kids have read Harry Potter."

Lynn Thompson: 425-745-7807 or lthompson@seattletimes.com