Nazgul

Here's an article I pulled from the online version that actually resides on the front page of the printed version.

I think the people who think Harry Potter promotes witchcraft should be turned into newts!

Harry Potter conjures trouble
Program cancellation vexes librarian

Wednesday, June 13, 2001

There will be no Muggles in Oskaloosa.

Last week, children had planned to attend a special presentation on Muggles, the ordinary humans portrayed in the best-selling Harry Potter series, at the Oskaloosa Public Library.

That is, until the library's board pulled the plug on Thursday's reading program after a handful of residents complained their children would learn witchcraft from the books.

In her 18 years serving as the librarian, Paula Ware said nothing as strange as this has happened before. She said there's a small faction in the community who thought she was going to teach children about witchcraft at the presentation.

"They felt very threatened by the evil factor in the book," she said. "I've tried to explain to them these are fantasy books and millions of people have read the books all over the world."

In reality, Ware said, English storyteller Te Holmes from Shawnee was going to conduct the 45-minute presentation, which has been performed at several Kansas City area libraries.

Ware said the theme of the books, by British author J.K. Rowling, is about good overcoming evil, not vice versa. In the series, children follow young Potter as he learns about magic and wizardry at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Pandemonium broke out in Oskaloosa about two weeks ago when the library board called a special meeting. The meeting was prompted by an advertisement Ware ran in the local newspaper, The Oskaloosa Independent, promoting the library's "Hogwarts Class." The ad states the class called "Muggle Studies" is for "aspiring young witches and wizards."

At the meeting, Ware said, the board went into executive session, closed to the public, and voted not to cancel the program. She said the board later rescinded its decision and canceled the program when an audience member threatened a lawsuit because of the open meetings violation.

Under state law, public bodies in executive session can only discuss items, such as personnel matters of nonelected personnel, or consult with an attorney.

At the board's June 5 meeting, Ware said, some of the eight board members acknowledged they may have reacted too quickly.

"Some of them said they acted hastily, but it doesn't help the kids who wanted to come to the program," she said.

Kim Smith, a library board member, said she talked to Holmes about the presentation, which she hopes inspires children to do great things in their lives. "It's just storytelling," she said. "Unfortunately, we live in a community where people have a hard time thinking outside the box."

Smith said she regrets that the program was canceled, but the outcome, she hopes, will be that the board will be much more informed in the future.

With school out, Ware said, she doesn't have time to put up a fight and wants to put the incident behind her. Other reading programs will be offered this summer.

"It's my busiest time of the year, and I don't want to enter into a confrontation," she said. "But if this had been about banning the books, I would have taken this to the Supreme Court."

Children can readily check out copies of the four Potter books in the series at the library, Ware said.

Since the first book was released in 1998, a few schools have banned the books from their shelves. Last year, there were more than 25 challenges in 17 states to having Harry Potter on the shelves of school libraries, according to the American Library Assn.

Pointyskull

It's a sad and scary day when adults try to discourage kids from reading.

The fact that my 10 yr old daughter (a voracious reader) has read all the Potter books impresses me. When I was her age, the thought of tackling a 750 page book would have been unheard of.

Too bad for those kids. Really, it is.

Yrth

Sad. But some people are just like that.

BTW, your username reminds me of WWII era German armored vehicles.

Darren Garrison

Those people have no problem with kids reading, as long as they are reading The Bible. King James Version only, of course.

Arkonne

Luckily, I have read the harry potter books, so if you gentleman will excuse me I have to go use my supreme powers of total and awesome evil™ to hex and curse a library's board...

Hemulen

Clearly somebody out there read the onion article "Harry Potter Books Spark Rise In Satanism Among Children"
(http://www.theonion.com/onion3625/harry_potter.html) and failed to spot the joke...

What makes the Harry Potter books any more "dangerous" than numerous books already out there? I remember reading the chronicles of Narina, and LOTR without anyone suggesting that by doing so I would be warping the fabric of reality, or becoming inculcated by dark, mysterious, and generally untoward influences.

I would hazard a guess that the danger factor is that they are easily readable, well known, and widely discussed in mainstream media, and thus brought to the attention of those people out there with room temperature IQs and narrow mindsets.

Hemulen

monkeyboy

i think the Narnia books were "OK" by these folks because they were written by C.S. Lewis, who was a well know christian author, was he not?

i was flipping through the channels and came up on one of the religious ones the other day and they were doing a big, anti-harry potter show. talking about how evil the books were. there were hundreds of people in the audience, nodding their heads blankly. creepy. don't we all have bigger issues to deal with?

adamblast

If TV evangelists don't come up with a new popular devil each month, they don't keep raking in the money. Can this really come as a surprise to anyone? Any book which deals with any level of magic or witchcraft has to deal with this kind of fundamentalist junk.

<Small>(Spoken with the bitterness of a little kid whose Mom stopped letting him watch Dark Shadows, thanks to some stupid sermon or other...)</small>

BoatDrinks

Speaking as a Christian, I have to say that this whole "Harry Potter teaches witchcraft" or any other "evils" is a joke.

IMHO this is just another way for parents to shirk the responsibility of parenting.

If you bring your kids up right they shouldn't be overly influenced by what's in some work of fiction, or on a record album, or any of the other stuff they complain about.

To the book banning folks out there:

Xander

Did anyone read the article about the Harry Potter book-burning down in like Atlanta (I think)? I only heard the last bit of a blurb about it on the news, but apparently some church or church-group down in the South somewhere had a Harry Potter book burning. WTF??? I can't believe there are people in this country that would do something like that. I'm sorry, I thought I was living in America, not Nazi Germany.

X

Darren Garrison

Oh, there are plenty of church book (and CD) burnings here in the south. CD burnings are especially popular after a fellow named Billy Mayo passes through on one of his "rock music is a tool of Satan" tours.

Alien Redrum

That actually sounds like a good name for a summer concert series!
Mayo Concert Series Presents:Rock Music Is A Tool of Satan!

Featuring:
Stryper!
Krush!
And very special guests: Back Pew Boyz!!!

Be sure to bring your kids and their evil books and cds because on Stage 2 we will be having a good old fashioned bonfire!

-Steve

ClarkKentKY

From a recent Simpsons:

*ned is sitting on the couch reading to rod and todd*

NED: ".. and then.... Harry Potter went... Straight to Hell for practicing Witch Craft! THE END"

*tosses the book in the fireplace*

ROD & TODD: "Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!"

Shamus

Having grown up in the south, I've witnessed both prejudice and coexistence. The most amazing thing I've seen in all my years, though, is incredible hypocrisy there and everywhere.

For instance, we're sitting here discussing the unfair misjudgment of the Harry Potter books. Yet, at the same time, it's the "SOUTH" accused of burning books. Funny. The story I found placed the burning in a Pennsylvania location. It maybe be south of you, but where I come from, that doesn't qualify as the southern United States.

http://people.aol.com/people/daily/s...104208,00.html,

And again, I hear about people shirking their parental responsibilities. While I do not support parents choosing what MY CHILD reads, I fully support them choosing what THEIR child reads. That is parental responsibility, and completely within their rights.

There are those out there who would argue the right of the Potter fans to hold a program which features magic and witchcraft 'demonstrations' at the library. Later this winter, look for the very same group to veminatley protest against any groups holding a Nativity scene or a Christmas pagent there.

I am against censorship. I'm for parental guidence. I'm against hypocrisy.

Sure gotta love these topics, though. Get's em all worked up! (including me!)

Xander

Shamus, Sorry if my post came off sounding that way, but my intent wasn't to point out that the burning took place in the south. I was just trying to recall the location. I would be just as pissed if it had happened in Iowa, where I live!

And I agree that parents have the right to tell their kids what not to read. But a book-burning, IMHO, is not the right way to go about doing that. That's way past the line of parental responsibility, I think.

X

Eric F

Being that Narnia is a retelling of the New Testement I seriously doubt many Christians will have a problem with it.

Don't be angry at the ingorant yocals who had a hissy fit about their children being corrupted, be angry at the library board who didn't have the balls to see this through. I guess the threat of a lawsuit is just too scary sometimes to stand up for your rights.

C-Mart

I remember the book burning thing. What a shame. In this case if the librarian hadn't worded the flyers with the words "for aspiring young Witches and Wizards" then they wouldn't have stopped the reading, probably. Some kids may not have been allowed to go to it, but they wouldn't have cancelled it. I agree that parents have the right to limit what their kids read but even liberal parents get the shaft by the schools. If any of you have read the Author's Note at the end of Chaos Mode (I think its this one... Its one of the first 3 anyway) of the Mode Series by Piers Anthony, then you know why it sucks to have your parental authority challenged. It seems a mother allowed her daughter to read the Mode books, after she had read them herself. The daughter took the book to school and her teacher deemed it inappropriate (the main character is a suicidal 14 year old girl who falls in love with an older man from a far off 'mode') and took it away. The mom fought to get the book back (It had been sent to her by Piers and signed so it was valuable, sentimentally as well as monetarilly.) In the process she had her children taken away from her because she was deemed an unfit parent. Eventually she won, got her children back (after like 6 weeks) and got the book back... Or wait, I think that Piers sent her another copy. He had also tried to help get the original book back by writing to the principal of the school I think. If you want to get more detail on this story, the Author's Note tells the whole story. Anyway, I think that I have rambled on a little too long here. The point is that no matter how enlightened the world is supposed to be, there will always be those who are against something like Harry Potter or Piers Anthony books and it seems that we have to deal with it.

-CM-

[Edited by C-Mart on 06-18-01 at 02:09 PM]

Btate

I am not sure the person who wrote that has read the books.

They were the most fun I had reading in a long time.

Alvis

It's a shame a "small group" of parents got the program cancelled. Isn't that the way it always goes?

Scheherazade

Yeah... and I ate some moldy eggs when I was two and got tomaine poisoning because of Dr. Suess. People just need to get a grip. I think the Harry Potter series is the best thing to happen to children's books since Judy Bloom. I really hate when people try to limit their childrens' imaginations like this. It just irks me to no end.

~Scheherazade

Darren Garrison

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Scheherazade

Quote:

is the best thing to happen to children's books since Judy Bloom.
~Scheherazade

Yeah, but remember the big rash of salmonella cases brought about by turtle-eating because of THAT careless writer?

cfmartin3

"There is more than one way to burn a book.
And the world is full of people running about with lit matches."

Ray Bradbury

The more things change...

Scheherazade