Harry Potter is "the boy who lived." Anyone might know this, who has not been sequestered in an underwater dome for the last couple of years. The young orphan, rises above his lowly station in life by receiving a scholarship to the wondrous Hogwart's School for Wizards and Witches, where he embarks upon a journey of magical discovery.
Harry's adventurers are Oliver Twist, Tom Sawyer, and Captains Courageous all rolled up into a tidy, properly English package. He is a modest hero, inept at times but never panicky in the face of danger. In short, he is every kid, his friends are every other kid and his enemies are childhood terror boxed and wrapped for delivery, for purposes of being dispatched through the employment of courage, intelligence, guile, and no small amount of cheek.
Harry Potter drives the Christian Right straight up the walls of Jericho, nuts as an Alabama pecan grove.
English: Created by modifying this image Italiano:...
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
English: J.K. Rowling reads from Harry Potter and ...There have been many instances cited in the press, of outright banning of this book series by ultra conservatives who cringe at the notion of magic, blanch at the mention of witchery and sincerely believe that J.K. Rowling is an instrument of Satan.
"In Minnesota, Michigan, New York, California and South Carolina, parents who feel the books promote interest in the occult have called for their removal from classrooms and school libraries." Said author Judy Blume in the New York Times. She added, "I knew it was coming."
Blume's books suffered a similar spate of banning 20 years ago. Her unconventional, "Shoot from the heart" approach to reality literature was unwelcome in conservative households. Where she was then, J.K. Rowling is now.
The Boy Wizard's adventures are so popular that grade school kids are devouring the 760 odd page volume, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire...
Very interesting essay
This essay is very revealing to me. I never knew that Harry Potter would encounter objection due to its 'magical' content. I thought that kind of hysteria existed only in times of the Salem Witch Trials, or the Middle Ages. This essay explains this negative perception of the Potter books in a very eloquent way, and I agree with the writer than kids should be allowed 'to see wonder in literature'. Nice piece of writing!
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