Harry Potter Controversy

The Harry Potter Controversy

All across the United States today, there is the heated, never-ending debate over what should and should not be prohibited in children's televisioin, music, and literature. One immensely popular children's novel that has thrust itself into controversial waters is J.K. Rowling's best seller, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. While grasping the hearts' and imaginations' of children across the globe, and even adults for that matter, the high-flying magic and sorcery found in the novel has rubbed some readers the wrong way. Religion extremist argue that the witchcraft in the novel promotes a sac religious theme to young readers. Despite the religious and moral criticisms of the novel, it should not be banned from young students because it influences children to read and imagine, it encourages positive themes, and over the course of history there has been a countless number of stories with similar ideas.

One main characteristic of the book that people who are in objection to it fail to grasp is that it gets children to read and stimulates the imagination. In today's high technology world getting children to read books for recreation is about as difficult as pulling teeth. Much of contemporary fantasy for the young is closer in style to television than to literature: it overwhelms by using in print form the pace and stimuli of the electronic media, flooding the imagination with sensory rewards while leaving it malnourished at the core (O'Brien). It's a known fact that children are much more entertained today by computers, television and Nintendo. All of the new advances had

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left reading books the last thing on the mind of today's youth, until the emergence of the Harry Potter novels. Even though the novel may be a tad bit questionable form a religious

standpoint, isn't better than the abundance of violence found in most popular video games and throughout primetime television. The playful spells found in the book are much less harmful blood and gore found in the popular game Grand Theft Auto. It has been recorded that today over 100 million of the Potter books have been sold, and that they have been translated into forty-two languages (O'Brien). This incredible number proves the novel has promoted children to read and imagine in extremely large numbers. As a whole, the small amount of harmless rule breaking done by Harry and the other characters is petty when it comes to the fact the novel stimulates reading in a time when children's books could be considered an endangered species.

While some people believe the novel imposes mischievous and anti-religious themes, it is clear to see the many positive themes that the book suggests. "In today's climate, with the occults and Satanism, we can be desensitizing our children to the dangers of occults and Satanism. With books like Harry Potter, though, they have some good themes and lean toward good morals and character values" (Coleman).One of