Harry Potter and the US Peril

FROM DAMIAN WHITWORTH IN WASHINGTON

HARRY POTTER has a new adversary. Parents in the Bible Belt and beyond are trying to ban the best-selling children's books by the British author J.K. Rowling because they feature witchcraft and "sheer evil".

The Board of Education in South Carolina has agreed to review whether the books should be allowed in schools after complaints from parents that the tales of young Harry's adventures at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry - now occupying the top three spots in the New York Times bestseller list - are unsuitable for children. "The books have a serious tone of death, hate, lack of respect and sheer evil," said Elizabeth Mounce, one of those calling for a ban.

Harry's escapades have cast a spell over American children. More than five million copies of the three books have been published in America and millions more paperbacks are disappearing off bookshelves almost as fast as they can be stacked. Harry was on the cover of Time last month with pages of analysis inside of how he has revived the lost art of reading among children.

But protests by those who maintain that black magic is at work are spreading. The American Library Association said that there had been attempts to remove the books from schools in New York and Michigan. In Georgia, Jerry Locke, an elementary school head, told teachers to stop reading the books to classes. "It's questionable whether every parent wants their child to read or be exposed to books to do with magic and wizardry," he said.

There have been vociferous objections too in St Paul, Minnesota, home of the books' illustrator, Mary GrandPre. "The world is so full of evil, why do we have to bring it to them on such an intimate level as the classroom?" asked Shari Piehl.

The latest book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, has been genuinely regarded as darker than the previous two with dementors, who suck up souls, and an evil wizard, Sirius Black, intent on murdering the boy. Some American reviewers have said that the death and violence in the book goes too far.

Recently Rowling said of Lord Voldemort, the character who killed Harry's parents: "I am writing about someone who is evil. And rather than make him a pantomime villain, the only way to show how evil it is to take a life is to kill someone the reader cares about."

The series, which will eventually total seven novels, interweaves modern London and Wizard World. The first two books sold two million copies in Britain even before American children got their hands on them. Now they have been translated into 28 languages.

Source: The Forbidden Library

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