The backlash against the Harry Potter books and films were quite intriguing. For a start the books are FICTION. Witches and wizards and Voldemorts, magic wands and talking animals are not real.

Harry Potter was all about good versus evil. The reactions of some religious groups border on irrational hysteria at times.

The Harry Potter books were marvellous, humourous, powerful, disturbing, illuminating, everything one might want in a good read.
And children loved them.

We all have books that lifted the fog
for us, caused the Great Aha!, and literally changed our lives.
The printed word is pondered, and it is received only when the mind is fully engaged. Like no other medium it has the power to stay with us. Harry Potter was an excellent role model for children, he showed what noble deeds looked like - and that there is such a thing as duty and sacrifice. He enchanted not only for the magic, but because he remained steadfast in the most unbearable circumstances. He made children believe that life's possibilities are without limit. Magic was in, it was great literature that wasn't didactic and it certainly instructed. What a pity that some people are totally unreasonable.

J. K. Rowling forces her young readers to think about the issues involved. That in itself makes her remarkable as a writer. Worth reading, not censoring. Isn't that what educating our young people is all about? Teaching them to think for themselves?

Obviously some people think not. They consider her work, "immoral" and "evil."
I wonder how many of these people have actually read any of the Harry Potter books?

I guess the heart of this issue is one's definition of education. Obviously these Christian "wowsers," believe that education is designed to pass on from generation to generation a prescribed, accepted, and very limited body of knowledge. And that everything else is taboo.

Most thinking people on the other hand, believe that the purpose of education is to teach young people to be problem solvers, to gain new insights, to determine their own positions. The wowsers are entitled to their beliefs what they are not entitled to is to impose their beliefs on others. Great ideas and great societies are the products of free inquiry. It must continue to remain free.

I think you hit the nail on the head, Lexi, when you question the number of 'anti-Potterists' who have actually read any of the books. At the last school at which I worked, we had a class set of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone for reading in Year 8. It was at once the most popular and least used of all our texts. It was popular because most of the kids - even non-readers - were excited about it. It was rarely used because there were always a couple of kids in each class whose parents had forbidden them from reading Harry Potter. Eager to please, the school allowed this to get in the way. Fair enough, I guess - it's not the place of a school to force kids to defy their parents. Sad, though, because it would have been one of the few books many of these kids would have read and enjoyed. Who knows - it could have opened the world of reading up to a whole group of students who had never considered it pleasant before.

The wowsers who hate Potter are the same wowsers who kick up a fuss every time a school studies Macbeth. They are people who miss the point: yes, magic, the occult and witchcraft feature; however, they are motifs used to draw out deeper points about the world. Kids don't read Harry Potter to learn magic, and critics don't praise it for its apparent promotion of the occult.

Rather, Harry Potter has been a roaring success because it does the things literature should do:
1) It fuels the imagination
2) It gets people thinking
3) It entertains
4) It makes a statement about life.
The values of friendship, hope, loyalty, honesty, fighting for the underdog, standing up for what is right, self-sacrifice, courage in the face of adversity, perseverance and integrity towards oneself and others are all things these wowsers claim to stand for. So why are they so against people reading about them?

Until Harry Potter came along I had not read any fiction for years. There was always too much I wanted to know/learn to have time for, or interest in fiction. The last one was Michener's Hawaii. Having read his Tales of the South Pacific, I wanted to see how he spun it.

Then I picked up the first Potter, we had given to my daughter.

What an imagination Rowling has. I don't know if I'd like to live in her head, but what comes out of it is sheer joy. How anyone could have an issue with such imaginative & fun stuff I can't imagine. I do know I would not like to live in their heads.

I have not read the last couple in the series, which I have heard criticised as a bit too dark, so that's a pleasure I shall partake of, some time soon. If the kids had not left home, I would have of course. I may go & see the movies instead. I'll have to think about that, it's a drastic step. The last movie I actually watched was the original star wars, & I only went to see it because the theme music was so good

Hasbeen,

I haven't read any of the books - for some reason, I just don't enjoy Rowling's style of writing. I read a lot of fiction, but I think my mind was poisoned when I studied literature as an undergrad. If something's plain, simple, straightforward and easy to read, it seems to be a bit beyond me. I'm stuck with 'classics' and 'subversive' literature - something I'll have to rectify.

I'm sure that was all very interesting. But the point of this post is:

I have seen every movie in the series (saw the last one this evening), and thoroughly enjoyed them. Take away Rowling's writing style, and the ideas appeal to me a lot. I've enjoyed watching the Potter crew grow up, just as my own students have been growing up. At the start, I related them to my Year 8s; as it went on, I could connect with them on higher and higher levels. The last movie was a little bit of a disappointment, largely because of the gimmicky 3D effects they threw in. I saw it in 2D, but could see that the purpose of much of the cinematography and action was to add the 'wow' factor to the 3D screenings. It didn't detract from the plot or the ideas, but I did feel that they could have put a bit more effort into remaining true to the series and a bit less into the gimmicks. Still, I thoroughly recommend you go and watch it. Take yourself out to a late session (or one when the kids are all at school), and you'll enjoy a very grown-up movie that has a satisfying (if predictable) close to the series.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I share your enthusiasm for Michener - he seems like an earlier Bill Bryson to me: informative, if taken with a pinch of salt, and thoroughly amusing.