City of York Council is holding a thrilling midnight event at York Central Library for young Harry Potter fans.

'Harry Potter and the Ghosts of the Midnight Library' event will take place on Friday 20 July to coincide with the launch of 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows', which takes place at 12.01am on Saturday 21 July. The event is aimed at children and young people aged between eight and 16 years. Guests are invited to go along at 11.15pm and the event will end at around 1am. All of the available places were quickly snapped up.

On arrival, children will each be given a card bearing the name of one of the four 'houses' at Hogwarts, the school in the Harry Potter novels. There will be minimal lighting to give the library a eerie feel. Guests will then be led up the spooky back staircase to the darkened reference library, where York-based storyteller Helen Sant, who will be dressed as 'Gothic Molly', will tell a mixture of light-hearted and more scary ghost tales. Some of these will be interactive to allow the younger children to get involved.

At 12.01am, when the embargo on the new Harry Potter book is lifted, guests will see them for the first time as they are removed from the boxes. As the library books are processed, the children will gather in their 'houses' to take part in fun Harry Potter activities. Before the children make their way home, they will be able to borrow one of the new Harry Potter books and a Dumbledore look-alike will read part of the first chapter. This means that the lucky children who secure tickets to the event will be among the first in the world to hear the beginning of the last ever Harry Potter book!

When guests leave at around 1am, they will each receive a small goodie bag.

Sue Matthews, schools' liaison and children's librarian for the council, said: "We wanted to do something special to mark the release of the final Harry Potter book and this promises to be a really exciting event."