Wherever I go in Chestnut Hill, the topic of conversation seems to always turn to the Harry Potter “festival” that has come to be this neighborhood’s signature event.

The tone in these conversations is always about two parts awe, one part pride and one part unease. Awe reflects the ever growing popularity of the event, which really is a phenomenon. The pride is that Chestnut Hill is the home for this phenomenon. The unease is beheld in the widened eyes of those who wonder if maybe this time it will be too big and consume everyone in a swarm of Millennials in wizard robes.

These are well placed emotions for the weekend of activities that will transform the neighborhood on the weekend of Oct. 21 and 22. Harry Potter continues to demonstrate that it is a cultural phenomenon for which there is no apparent limit. Such is the popularity that when the script for a London play based on a new Harry Potter story was released in August, it hit the best seller list.

Many can wring their hands about the popularity of these books. The first novel, “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (Sorcerer’s Stone in the United States) was dismissed by many prominent critics including Harold Bloom who decried author J.K. Rowling’s reliance on cliché and dismissed the book as unliterary.

“Can more than 35 million book buyers, and their offspring, be wrong? Yes, they have been, and will continue to be so for as long as they persevere with Potter,” Bloom said in a Wall Street Journal review of the first novel.

But if Bloom is right, more than 100 million people are wrong. The Harry Potter series has sold more books than any other. “Philosopher’s Stone” – which will mark its 20th anniversary next summer – is one of nine books in the history of publishing to have sold more than 100 million copies. It sits ahead of “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Hobbit” on the all-time best seller list.

The rest of the novels have each sold 50 million more. The best-selling of that group, 2005’s “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Price,” has out sold “Catcher in the Rye,” “20,000 Leagues under the Sea” and “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.”

So it should come as no surprise that something so huge could flourish under the right circumstances. A whole generation of young people has been raised on harry Potter books. And younger kids are still reading them at a remarkable rate. Chestnut Hill’s Harry Potter Weekend is a perfect outlet for these fans.

Harry Potter is sure to draw a great many people to Chestnut Hill on the 21st and 22nd, and most of them will likely have a very good time dressing as their favorite characters, taking part in magic classes or embarking on the Potter-themed pub crawl. It truly is a magical experience.

-- Pete Mazzaccaro