Did you know that more than 50 books are challenged to get banned from school libraries? Books like Goosebumps by R.L. Stine, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle are on many banned books lists. Since 2006, one of the most commonly challenged books is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. According to MSNBC, mother Laura Mallory of Georgia said that the books were “an ‘evil’ attempt to indoctrinate children in the Wicca religion.” When she took it to the Board of Education, Victoria Sweeny said, “If schools were to remove all books containing reference to witches, they would have to ban Macbeth and Cinderella.”
Many Christians have stood with Mallory, quoting from the Bible Deuteronomy 18:9-12:
"There shall not be found among you anyone who... practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord…”
Since 2006, Harry Potter has been put on many banned books lists, but fans of the books continue to fight against it.
I bring this up because I am writing a paper about “Should Harry Potter be banned from schools?”. It really got to me last year when, in my Novels class, we looked at the most commonly banned books and most of the books we were reading were on that list. We also noticed Harry Potter and spent a lot of time discussing it.
As a fan of Harry Potter, obviously I do not think the books should be banned. I am a Christian and I follow the Bible. But the books are fiction, make-believe stories and some religious scholars are now arguing that the books actually follow the plot of the Gospel and use Christian imagery. There are tons of people from my church that are fans of Harry Potter, and one thing we talked about in youth groups was that most of the time the adults that are for banning a certain book are parents of younger children. They don’t want their child to be influence by the books, when, in reality, books like To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby won’t be read by students until Jr. High or High School.
This issue (censorship) is one of the most important to me, Amanda. I cannot tolerate the idea of other people (with agendas) making decisions about what I can and can't read. As an English teacher, this was a battle that had to be fought frequently.
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