Many Parents and Christian groups want to ban children’s and young adult books like the Harry Potter book series from the schools and libraries. Books are bad because they make young people think, express new ideas, develop creativity and question things. It’s horrible isn’t it?
The critics of adventure, fantasy, and magic-filled tales claim that these books are filled with witchcraft and are a tool for Satan to influence the youngsters into Wicca or Satanism and they teach anti-family values. These are the same ignorant people who have been trying to ban "questionable" books since the nineteen-eighties.
These books teach children good moral values and make reading fun. They are whisked into a bright and colorful world of imagination. Harry Potter books contain character names that suggest white, African American, and East Indian children in the story. Boys and Girls are equally involved in the action and plot of the story. It teaches children that good wins over evil, love wins over hate and knowledge over strength. Children learn to believe in themselves and ask for help from friends and family when they need it.
The Avvenire, an Italian paper written for Catholic Bishops, contained an article written by Massimo Introvigne stating that "the basic plot is, as expected, good versus evil. Good guys, including Potter, in the end prevail because they are clever, brave and – more than anything else – morally good."
Controversial children’s author Judy Blume wrote a New York Times article expressing her dismay at the challenging of Harry Potter, her own, and other books. She argues that parents will find any ‘ism’ in a book in order to challenge it and points out that many claims against books are ridiculous and unfounded.
Many groups claim that Harry Potter should be banned on the basis that it teaches anti-family values because Harry’s parents are dead and he lives with an evil foster family. They should be ready to take on a long list of other books, many of which I’m sure they enjoyed as children. Cinderella is orphaned and forced to work for her stepfamily. Sleeping Beauty is thrown out by her father and her stepmother tries to poison her. Peter Pan and the lost boys ran away from home because they didn’t like what parents expected of them. Peter Pan also used fairy dust to fly. That’s magic so it must be evil witchcraft.
Parents need to talk to their children and teach them right from wrong and, at a later age, what is real from what is imaginary. Censoring books of this genre strip the joy from reading and the possibility of an imagination away from children. Of course, some material isn’t meant for children but setting reasonable guidelines is a better solution than banning it from everyone else. Censoring children from reading books with ideas that differ from our own country will leave us as a nation filled with ignorant, rebellious, and uncultured people. Children would have nothing to guide them into believing that they can fly, make new discoveries, or visit other worlds, not even the ones in their head.
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.” – Oscar Wilde
Keep up the good fight!
By the way, I love the layout of your blog, it’s very easy to navigate and pleasing to the eye.
I think that everyone has a threshold of tolerance, though, and while it’s easy to spot works like Harry Potter as something to ban, I think what it boils down to is really just censoring views that go contrary to what you the individual want to believe. I think everyone is guilty of this in one way or another. Censorship can also be a simply exercised, for example, as a library circulation staffer who chooses more liberal books for the shelves over conservatives. That’s censorship, isn’t it, but does this sort of behind the scenes activity ever make the headlines?
And of course, certain topics are just universally censored, without question, right? For instance, would you defend a public school library carrying a false-history book that denied the holocaust ever happened?
.-= Rob´s last blog ..December Sun #4 – Page 17 =-.
What is more disturbing is that schools are censoring the work of (very) young children. My son (9 years) has been told by his teacher and principal that he cannot write about guns, ninjas, the bogeyman, a haunted house, vampires or Frankenstein. His teacher has put his drawings of monsters in the bin due to their being “inappropriate”. He has been forbidden to draw pictures of vampires and the teacher asked another boy to watch him on a joint project to make sure that his pictures weren’t too scary. They are now complaining that he is not completing his work. I don’t think he knows what he is allowed to write about.
This is horrible. I had a similar experience in middle school. I was sent to the school counselor because my stories contained violence. Could you mention something during parent-teacher conference? I would get an attorney involved.
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