I feel like at the beginning of every school year, there’s always a news story about a book or series being banned for whatever reason.
It’s why I wasn’t too surprised to come across an article last week that a Catholic school in the United States had banned the Harry Potter series, but the logic behind the decision was what made me pause.
Robynne Henry The Henry Hype
The article, published by Global News, stated that in an email to parents, Father Dan Reehil, who’s the pastor for St. Edward Catholic School who removed the books from their library shelves, said the curses and spells in the series are real and a person could risk conjuring evil spirits if they read it out loud.
I’m sorry, what?
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was released in 1997. There haven’t been any reports of a reader successfully summoning anything while reading the books, nor has anyone listening to the audiobooks experienced such an event. As someone who’s read the series multiple times, I can confirm I’ve never done anything of the sort. It’s 2019, I feel like we would have heard something by now if it was happening.
I know there’s been a lot of controversy around Harry Potter over the years, and I knew quite a few kids growing up who couldn’t read it because their parents simply didn’t want them to. I could understand it if the books were bad, or had underlying messages that taught people bad lessons.
But, they don’t.
It taught me that love is the most powerful weapon, and people can surprise you in good and bad ways, that you’re heart’s going to be broken and that’s okay. It showed me bad things are going to happen in your life, but you shouldn’t let them ruin your future. Being different isn’t a bad thing, and you can’t always trust those in power.
When I was in high school, my Grade 12 English class had an assignment where we had to figure out why certain books were banned. Most were pretty straight forward; they were about drugs, abuse, and other subjects that parents deemed inappropriate for school children. When we got to the Harry Potter series, the classroom was divided. A majority of us didn’t think it belonged on the list because it didn’t include any of the darker topics the others did.
It’s this discussion that always pops into my head whenever any book gets banned, especially if I’ve read it. I don’t think books should be banned altogether, but maybe limited if the readers can’t handle the subjects covered.
