Content area
Full Text
In the past two years, Harry Potter has suddenly become surprisingly well-known to school children throughout Great Britain and the United States. Harry is the hero of a series of adventure stories published in England in 1997. Remarkably, the first three books of this series are numbers 1, 2, and 3 on the New York Times bestseller list, and the first one, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, has been on this list for over a year! This is the story of Harry, an orphan living with his disagreeable uncle and aunt and horridly selfish cousin, who receives a mysterious message and subsequently goes away to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Although the school and all the teachers are totally involved in wizardry, the book's underlying themes are universal: making friends, team rivalry, trouble with the authorities, and, of course, interesting lessons and too much homework.
It is the magic-the lessons in flying on a broomstick, the nocturnal prowls in a cloak of invisibility, the potions and the various spellsthat has become a source of much controversy. Some parents and local school boards, feeling that witchcraft is intrinsically evil, have urged that the Harry Potter books be removed from school libraries....