Banning "The Boy Who Lived"

“The boy who lived” as Harry Potter is commonly referred to in the Harry Potter series should be allowed to live and circulate in school libraries, and to me, the fact that a children’s book series causes so much controversy is utterly ridiculous. One of the greatest outcomes of the Harry Potter series was what seemed to be a revival of children loving books. Kids of all ages became excited to read about the famous boy wizard and in a world where tv and video games are what usually excites kids, Harry Potter seemed like a very big win for the literary world.

I have read and reread every Harry Potter novel. I have never seen the series as one about witchcraft or the occult. Harry Potter has always been about the coming of age adventures of a young boy and his friends trying to triumph over evil. The lessons in Harry Potter are about being compassionate, loyal, and loving, not about the promotion of disobedience and disrespect for authority. That is a scared, skewed, and disillusioned view of these novels. With the popularity of the Harry Potter novels obviously comes this controversy. There is the likelihood that many books dealing with religion and possibly witchcraft are at the school libraries, yet because they are not necessarily popular they are not being targeted. There are most likely books about Halloween at most of the school libraries, yet these are not being banned. Even book on religious holidays or books on history, such as the Salem witch trials do not seem to be targets either. Instead of helping children to develop better reading skills and allowing them to learn lessons from the plots and circumstances of the Harry Potter novels the schools and parents calling for these actions are hindering their children. Interpreting a series of books and deeming it to represent something it does not, then not even allowing young adults to form their own opinions on said books will only stifle and stunt them as individuals.