Bookburnings of Harry Potter

[kkersey_austin]

I purchased my copy of OoP through our church's bookstore. :-) 

Of course one of the reasons our church put in the order was to be a
bit of a counterpoint to some of the anti-Potter preaching. Another
reason was so that we could have a really great OoP release party at
the civilized hour of 8am (Saturday morning).

The book burnings and some of the more outrageous anti-Potter
preaching get publicity, but more insidious is the ongoing campaigns -
widespread and often successful - by some groups to remove books from
public and school libraries. The American Library Association (ALA)
has excellent information on their web site - look for the materials
for Banned Book Week on their site. Rowling's books have topped out
the lists of challenged and banned books for several years, IIRC.

http://www.ala.org

I have this vague idea in my head about *why* some people may feel so
threatened by books (or ideas in books) that are not consistent with
their own religious views or political opinions; it has to do with the
perceived power of the written word, something that is treated
differently in more literal vs. more liberal religious traditions. 

It must be very scary to live in a world where you fear being
corrupted by what you read. OK, I admit that I feel just a tiny bit of
trepidation when turning to the Op Ed page of the Wall Street Journal.
(A wink in Sean's general direction here ;-)

And I do feel *some* sympathy. Last night I was reading to my three
year old from an anthology of 20th Century Children's lit, and I
picked "Bedtime for Frances". I'd read "A Birthday for Frances" (or
whatever the title was) before and thought it was delightful. We were
deep into the story when I ran across a referrence to spanking. I
tried to read over it with "you'll get in trouble" instead of "you'll
get a spanking" but it turns out the whole damn plot turns on that
threat. (Frances hears a moth banging against a window and that
reminds her of the threat of being spanked so she stays in bed instead
of getting up and bugging her parents, and so she finally goes to
sleep.) I really don't want to start a discussion about physical
punishment, but our family does not do it and the last thing I wanted
at bedtime was to explain to my child about spanking. My first
reaction was - how dare they put that story in this book! But now I am
thinking that it is not such a bad thing, as long as it doesn't become
a favorite. When my child can read the story as written, I'll be happy
to discuss spanking with him. Until then, he's going to hear my
version, never mind the plot holes. ;-)

Anyway, I've not had any encounters myself with folks who have let me
know that they think reading HP will corrupt them, but my mom did miss
out on a tutoring job when she asked the student, who was about 11 or
12, if he had read Harry Potter. "*We* Don't Read Books Like *That*."
was the answer, supplied by the parent. Poor Kid.

Karen, who notes that this week's sermon topic at her church is Buffy
the Vampire Slayer, spriritual lessons thereof. Hmmm. 


--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "drumalfoy"
<drusillamalfoy at g...> wrote:
> I hope this forum is the right place to post my question and I 
> apologize if this posting is inapropriate, but I have been 
> confronted with articles about Harry Potter book burnings. 
> <snip snip>
>  
> Now my question is: is this something you are confronted with, too? 
> And to what extend? Or is this something the media pushes up and 
> these things are only curiosities which do not usually happen?
>