The Magic of Figurative Language The Harry Potter series of books, written by J.K. Rowling, dominates the best seller lists since it was published on June 26, 1997. The tale follows a young orphan who lives with a very mean aunt, uncle, and cousin, before finding out that he’s the most famous young wizard in the world. Swept from his dismal existence of teasing, chores, and bullying, he finds himself plunged into a fantasy world of friendship, magic, and adventure, at a boarding school for wizards. Despite the popularity of the series, the bestsellers list is not the only one on which we find young Harry and friends; due to the controversy of prevailing themes such as wizardry, resistance to rules, and death defying adventure, these novels
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According to Kara Lynn Anderson, a researcher at Perdue University, Harry Potter has created a generation of voracious child readers, improving literacy and engagement with large texts of moral and figurative depth. However, despite these accolades, Harry Potter continues to be banned from schools, libraries, and homes across the country. Because Harry frequently goes off on death defying adventures, some parents believe that their children will begin to wander off without them. Certain religious groups find the themes of witchcraft to be inappropriate or downright immoral. The height of the Harry Potter controversy, 2001, saw parents bringing petitions to ban the books to school boards, libraries, and in one case in Georgia, all the way to the Board of Education, fearing that a child might read these books and run away from home to find Hogwarts, the school Harry attends. Pushes to ban these stories are supported by Christian groups, educators, and scholars alike, who assert that Harry and his band of friends teach children “to disobey authority, lie, and steal, because Harry and his friends engage in these activities at various points in the novels” (Anderson 2005). However, these arguments are made assuming that the children who will read these novels are unable to think for themselves, or determine what is real or false. To remove a novel which has promoted childhood literacy and engaged a whole generation of early readers, simply because we do not believe that children are capable of identifying reality vs. fiction does them a tremendous
According to Kara Lynn Anderson, a researcher at Perdue University, Harry Potter has created a generation of voracious child readers, improving literacy and engagement with large texts of moral and figurative depth. However, despite these accolades, Harry Potter continues to be banned from schools, libraries, and homes across the country. Because Harry frequently goes off on death defying adventures, some parents believe that their children will begin to wander off without them. Certain religious groups find the themes of witchcraft to be inappropriate or downright immoral. The height of the Harry Potter controversy, 2001, saw parents bringing petitions to ban the books to school boards, libraries, and in one case in Georgia, all the way to the Board of Education, fearing that a child might read these books and run away from home to find Hogwarts, the school Harry attends. Pushes to ban these stories are supported by Christian groups, educators, and scholars alike, who assert that Harry and his band of friends teach children “to disobey authority, lie, and steal, because Harry and his friends engage in these activities at various points in the novels” (Anderson 2005). However, these arguments are made assuming that the children who will read these novels are unable to think for themselves, or determine what is real or false. To remove a novel which has promoted childhood literacy and engaged a whole generation of early readers, simply because we do not believe that children are capable of identifying reality vs. fiction does them a tremendous