CASEY CAMPBELL | Gazette-Times Nikolai DeBrito, 2, can’t resist taking a peek while the rest of the children at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library have their eyes closed to see how quickly they can smell the chocolate as Patrick Magee, owner of Burst’s Candies, removes the mold from the 3-foot chocolate bunny Monday night.

It’s been eight years that Patrick Magee has been creating chocolate bunnies for the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, so long now that Magee has another way to measure the passage of time.

Every year about this time, a group of wide-eyed children watches Magee — the owner of Burst’s Candies in downtown Corvallis — unpack a 3-foot-tall chocolate bunny during a special edition of the library’s story time. He sees some familiar faces from year to year.

“Some of them when we started were shorter than the bunny,” Magee said Monday, as he prepared for this year’s edition of what’s become a Corvallis spring tradition.

Magee makes the bunnies downstairs at Burst’s. For the yard-tall bunny he unpacked Monday night at the library, he poured roughly 30 to 35 pounds of chocolate — heated to nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit — into the mold. He then rotates the mold for 30 to 45 minutes until the cooling chocolate coats the sides of the molds; the interior stays hollow, but the sides are coated with a layer of chocolate that’s about a half-inch thick.

It’s obviously a labor of love for Magee, who said “I’ve always been an advocate of reading” and spent a year volunteering at the Corvallis School District before he bought Burst’s. His time is donated, but the library has covered the cost of the chocolate — about $250 — for the last few years.

Monday night, he showed off the latest bunny to a crowd of more than 150 at the library, including a group of 25 or so young children who crowded around the chocolate treat. “How many of you love to read?” he asked the children. “How many of you love chocolate?” The answers to both questions were unanimous.

After Magee opened the mold, he moved the bunny to a smaller room at the library, where adult volunteers carved the chocolate into smaller bits, which were placed into nearly 100 bags. Everyone who wanted chocolate got at least one bag. Others wanted more.

One father glanced at his daughter, clutching a handful of the bags, and gently admonished her: “You know what, sweetheart? We don’t need that much candy.”

Another bunny that Magee created is on display in the children’s section at the library; a random drawing Monday will determine who wins that. And other bunnies from Burst’s will be the centerpieces this week at other story times to be at the library’s branches in Philomath, Monroe and Alsea.

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