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Harry Potter Books Alarm UK Christian Educators
March 30, 2000
By Patrick Goodenough
(CNSNews.com) - A primary school in England has banned its younger pupils from reading the Harry Potter stories, award-winning books about a schoolboy wizard that have made best-seller lists around the world.
Carol Rookwood, head teacher (principal) of the St. Mary's Island School in Kent, said she made the decision because the Bible condemns witches and wizards as evil, while the books portray them as fun and harmless.
"Our ethos on teaching comes from the Bible. The Bible is clear about issues such as witchcraft, demons, devils and the occult. It says clearly and consistently from Genesis to Revelation that they are real, powerful and dangerous. Throughout it insists that God's people should have nothing to do with them."
Some parents in the United States also have tried to remove Harry Potter books from schools for similar reasons.
In a letter sent to parents, Rookwood said, "I believe it is confusing to children when something wicked is being made to look fun."
Older pupils would be allowed to read the books once the issues had been discussed in religious education classes.
She said parents have been supportive of the decision. The school receives some of its financing from the Church of England.
The Harry Potter books, by Edinburgh author Joanne Rowling, have been immensely popular in Britain, the U.S. and elsewhere.
Harry is an orphan who lives with a cruel uncle and aunt before discovering that he has magical powers. He enrolls at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and uses the powers he learns there to combat the forces of evil.
Three books have been written thus far. The first, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, netted a $100,000 advance for the American edition, a rare sum for a first novel.
By the time the third book appeared, 220,000 copies were sold in Britain in advance orders alone. The average initial print run for a children's book in the UK is around 20,000. More than 19 million copies of the third book were sold in the U.S.
A fourth book, Harry Potter and the Doomspell Tournament, is due out in July, but early orders have already propelled it to the top of Amazon.com's bestseller list, and to number 15 on the Barnes and Noble list.
On March 22, all three Harry Potter books made USA Today's weekly list of top-50 bestsellers, at numbers 2, 7 and 12. Barnes and Noble's top 100 selling list this week has the Potter books at numbers 1, 2, 4 and 15, and Amazon.com features them at 2, 5, 6 and 15.
The books are said to be very popular with adults too, as much for their style and humor as for the actual plots. Time Warner has bought the film rights to two of them.
A representative of Bloomsbury, which publishes the books in Britain, told CNSNews.com Wednesday: "We don't have a great deal to say about it [the ban], just to say we feel the books have a strong moral message and clearly portray good and evil," she said.
CNSNews.com spoke to head teachers at several other Christian schools Wednesday about the Potter books.
Babs Olibimu, head teacher of the Springfield Christian School in South London, said the school's policy was neither to stock nor encourage children to read "any books that go against Christian doctrine," not just Harry Potter books.
He said parents of pupils were supportive of the policy.
Emlyn Humphries, head teacher at the Takeley Christian School in southeast England, took a different approach.
"I think it's a bit hysterical, to be blunt," he said of the decision to ban the books.
Acknowledging that there had been "a lot of questions going around" about the Potter books, he said children are more perceptive then they're given credit for.
Far worse than books about magic were those promoting "gratuitous violence and gratuitous materialism."
"Banning books is not the way to go about things," Humphries said, adding that children would "go and read them anyway." And if they had questions about something in the books, they would not feel comfortable approaching anyone, so adults would have no input.
"We're not very keen on them," said Sally Stokes, head teacher of the Emmanuel Christian School in Oxford, "Individual children have their own copies, and that's up to parents, but they wouldn't be on our school bookshelves."
Stokes, who conferred with other teachers and some parents before responding, said the school sought to develop a "critical, open attitude" in children, especially as they become "older and more discerning."
"But we are very careful about age-appropriate material. For young children, we would want a clear distinction between good and evil, right and wrong. A lot of material we find confuses those."
As children get older, "they learn to deal with the gray areas and the compromises ... but while they're still young we feel our emphasis should be on making this clear."
We'd be unhappy with anything that trivializes evil. We take wrongdoing very seriously," Stokes said.
"Our lives are governed by biblical principles and Bible teaching would be to avoid evil and occult and contact with spirits and wizardry."
Rowlings' agent was not available for comment, and a spokesman said the author herself was away. She was quoted last year as responding to criticism by saying her books were "very moral" and represented the struggle between good and evil.
[Free Daily Front Page]
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