HOORAY FOR HARRY, HOGWARTS CAST SPELLS, MAKE POTIONS WITH WIZARD COLLECTOR CARDS.

Byline: Joseph Giordono Staff Writer

THOUSAND OAKS - The Harry Potter empire is about to give fans another reason to squander their allowance: a Pokemon-like trading card game.

Followers of the bespectacled, fictional wizard on Saturday can purchase the 82-card starter set at The Oaks mall in Thousand Oaks - one of only two places in the United States selling the $9.99 game before it's unveiled worldwide Monday in London.

But parents beware: Get there early.

``We are expecting about 1,000 people at the event, so hopefully we won't sell out of the cards,'' said Adrianne Himala, who works at the Game Keeper store in The Oaks. ``We have had all our other stores ship us their supply, so hopefully we will be OK.''

Based on the best-selling ``Harry Potter'' novels by J.K. Rowling, the cards are made by Wizards of the Coast Inc., the same Seattle-based company that produces the Pokemon trading cards.

Since the first novel, ``Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,'' the boy hero has cast a magic spell on children and adult readers alike. Last July, bookstores around the country held special midnight debut parties for the fourth installment, ``Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,'' which broke retail and online book sale records.

This fall, Burbank-based Warner Bros. will release ``Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,'' the first full-length movie about the boy wizard. And on the official Web site for the film, fans can catch news of their favorite wizard and even count down the days and minutes until the movie's Nov. 16 premiere.

The new card game, targeted at 8- to 14-year-olds, allows players to assume the role of a wizard at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, where they try to master their magic. Each card represents the spells, potions and creatures at players' disposal. The first wizard to make his or her opponent's cards ``disappear'' wins.

Freddi Scott, director of retail marketing for the card manufacturing company, expects the cards to do even better than their Pokemon-inspired brethren, the ``pocket monsters'' that populate video games, television shows and movies.

``Pokemon is a great game, but parents don't tend to understand the character names or the stories,'' Scott said. ``But because the Harry Potter books are so popular, parents can understand this.''

At The Oaks mall this weekend, children will be encouraged to attend a 30-minute session explaining how to play the game, at the end of which parents will be given the chance (read: forced by their children) to purchase a starter set and a $3.29 ``booster'' pack containing 11 random cards of the 116-card game.

Designed to coincide with the start of school and the fall release of the movie by Burbank-based Warner Bros., the game will eventually be distributed in 47 countries around the world.

Hobby and toy stores expect the game to be just as popular as anything else with the Harry Potter imprimatur. Himala said her store already carries about half a dozen other Potter products, from puzzles to board games.

``It's not just kids who are going to buy this - it's going to be the adults who read the books as well.''

SUCH A CARD

WHAT: Sale of first Harry Potter collectible cards.

WHERE: The Game Keeper, The Oaks mall, Thousand Oaks.

WHEN: Saturday.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 3 -- color) Kids can collect cards featuring boy wizard Harry Potter, center; the spooky and dangerous woods, left; and Hagrid's newly hatched dragon.

(4) The Harry Potter Trading Card Game could become the latest collecting craze, with cards featuring characters from the books.

Box:

SUCH A CARD (see text)