Something to think about...

Keep your hands off Harry Potter!

Banned Book Week, Sept. 23-30, is one of the most popular annual events known to the literary world. Every year a new book is challenged and claimed to be too provocative or harmful to society. However, it is unusual that a movie based on the book is challenged as well.

Recently, my personal favorite, the Harry Potter series, has been at the top of the most challenged list. I do not understand why the Harry Potter series receives so much controversy.

I’ve heard claims that the books promote witchcraft and parents do not want their children involved in “that sort of thing.” Parental complaints annoy me on this level. If you don’t want your child to read something, don’t allow him or her to have the book! Has society reached the point where schools need to send home permission slips to allow children to read?

Every year in history and English classes, teachers send home permission forms that allow students to watch rated R films. Parents have never complained about this. Movies are not nearly as informative as books. These movies promote more violence through graphic images of wars that must be imagined through an author’s descriptions in its written counterpart.

Rarely, if ever, are the movies based on a banned book considered a threat to a child. Many times, the movies are more harmful to a child’s imagination simply because the movie is more graphic than what the child is able to imagine by merely reading the words. For example, in “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston, a younger person may not comprehend the descriptions of interactions between Janie and Teacake. Yet, the movie presents these scenes in a graphic manner that is clearly understandable.

The Harry Potter series does not promote witchcraft on any level. I’ve read these books several times and have no desire to take a midnight flight on the nearest broomstick. This particular series is merely a story about a boy who is a wizard and struggles to save mankind from evil. Technically, there are no differences between Harry and the Princes of fairy tales who battle the evil dragons to save the fair maidens. Why, then, is this classic on the banned list and “Sleeping Beauty” is not?

Laura Mallory, a Gwinnett County mother, has been demanding that Harry Potter books be banned from public school library shelves since 2005. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Mallory claims that “the good characters lie, cheat and steal and are not punished.” If this mother had read the books she is trying to have banned, she would realize that the good characters she labels as “evil” were committing the acts she refers to in an effort to save wizards and “muggles” (non-magical people) throughout the world. Their acts are no different than those that private investigators take part in during an intense search.

Along with the Harry Potter series, several of the classic novels I have been raised to appreciate are found on the banned list as well. John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath are included, along with Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. These novels are being taught in schools across the country and loved by students throughout the world. In each of these books elements of American history are evident. Perhaps true events that our ancestors experienced are too harsh for innocent children to understand.

Without storybook characters, what dreams are today’s children permitted to have? Many of my friends say that I’m crazy for being enthusiastic about this issue. However, I love Harry more than any other character I have met in a series, and I highly anticipate the arrival of the last adventure at Hogwarts. On release night, I will be found at Barnes & Noble with a tight grip on the first copy within my reach. My imagination will be enhanced by what I will find with every turn of a page.