Panel addresses censorship in children’s libraries
Is Harry Potter teaching children to drink blood and practice witchcraft? Some parents are evidently concerned about the effects of the incredibly popular books since they are on top of the list of books objected to by public library patrons in the United States.
Utah State University sponsored a public forum entitled: “Is Harry Potter Evil? Censorship in Children’s Libraries” Tuesday. The event was part of USU Library Week and took place at the Eccles Conference Center. It featured a panel discussion by Vaughan Larson, librarian at Edith Bowen Elementary School, Sue Hill, director of the Brigham City Public Library, Debbie Hobbs, associate professor in the department of elementary education at USU, and Karen Palmer, a public health consultant. The discussion was moderated by Q-92 announcer Rob Flygare.
Harry Potter, a pre-adolescent wizard-in-training, is the hero of all four fiction books authored by British writer J.K. Rowling. Critics of the Harry Potter books, which are popular with children and adults, say the books promote black magic, anti-family values and violence among children. Supporters of Harry counter the books have helped to get huge numbers of children excited about reading, and that children are able to distinguish between the fantasy world presented in the books and reality.
Shelley Reier, a teacher at the Cache Valley Learning Center, brought a class of sixth, seventh and eighth graders to the discussion. She said her experience with Harry Potter has been overwhelmingly positive.
“I know most of these kids who are here with me very well,” Reier said. “I teach them twice a day. As a teacher, I work extremely hard to convey a love of reading. In 10 years of teaching, I’ve never seen something like Harry Potter. I’ve had kids who were refusing to read turn into avid readers after Harry Potter. I’ve even seen an improvement in writing in a number of kids.”
Although all the panel members and nearly all the 60 or so audience members did not think Harry Potter books should be banned from public libraries, there was one vocal audience member who said he had just read a Harry Potter book and was troubled by its message.
“As adults, we have to decide what is good for children,” he said. “I think a lot of adults make a big mistake when they ask children what is right for them. That’s an idea that became popular in the ’60s, and I think it’s very dangerous.”
He added that he was troubled by certain parts of the book, such as when one of the evil characters drinks blood. He also said he worried children would be turned on to magic and the occult, and then pursue those subjects. He said he wasn’t in favor of censorship, but of “common sense.”
All of the children in the audience seemed to be big Harry Potter fans. One child said, “I liked the suspense in the book. J.K. Rowling created a whole new world that didn’t exist before.”
Another child called Harry Potter “a hero,” and said the book “gives a sense of completion to kids.”
Steve Sturgeon, a manuscript librarian at USU who is in charge of Library Week, said the university had attempted to find a panel member critical of Harry Potter, but was unable to.
“We really did want to find someone critical of Harry Potter, but we couldn’t find anyone. I’m glad that one man was in the audience. At least that gave us a different viewpoint,” Sturgeon said.
Sue Hill, the Brigham City librarian, mentioned a recent survey in which many librarians said they wouldn’t risk losing their jobs to fight for controversial books, like one by Madonna, or another, “Daddy’s Roommate,” a children’s book about a gay father. She said she worried about censorship in public libraries.
“We’re getting in a scary business when we start saying these books are OK and these books aren’t,” she said.
She said she did not know of a case in Utah in which Harry Potter had been “challenged,” the term used when someone asks a book be removed from a public library.
Another panelist, Karen Palmer, said she and her children had read the Harry Potter books and loved them. She said rather than ban all books on witchcraft and the occult, “we should educate children on all religions – witchcraft, Judaism, Bahai, Buddhism, Christianity. The alternative is to ban all religion from public schools – including Christmas Break, Easter Break and other religious holidays.”