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Harry potter character overview
Why shouldn't harry potter be banned
Why shouldn't harry potter be banned
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The Question: Banish Harry Potter?
Everyone loves to sit down and read a good book that really makes you get into it. What about a type of literature that really makes you wonder and is not realistic but fun to read about because it is different. Then maybe you should read the book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, which was written by a talented writer named J.K. Rowling. This is an amazing book that is very popular, but then at the same time very disliked by some also. Witchcraft and other mythical actions happen upon this novel and can capture your mind in the first chapter. It can capture children and adults alike; this is not just a book for children. Some adults think otherwise though because many of them have been trying to ban Harry Potter books from public schools. Many adults that think this have caused a great amount of arguments between the school districts and community. A vast amount of parents say it is evil and inappropriate to read to students accounting that they may believe in bad beliefs from now on. Harry Potter should not be banned from public schools because you have your own rights, it is your belief with different views, and you can’t control the whole public school.
Religious education and children's literature have enjoyed a long parallel history. The earliest children's books were little more than religious devotionals or bible stories rewritten with the express enjoyment of children in mind. As children's literature progressed, however, it began to move away from religious instruction and into works that focused more on story. This doesn't mean that the two became mutually exclusive, as to this day many works that are still enormously popular with children are rife with religious allegory without sacrificing story. Two such children's works are George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin and C. S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.
Since the first segment of the series was released in 1997, Harry Potter has been challenged by churches and parents due to the practicing of magic by children found within the books. The books have been removed from school shelves, discouraged by churches, and censored by parents. It is claimed that Harry Potter is devilish, satanic, and encourages children to practice the occult, damaging their religious views (LaFond). Therefore, many parents keep their children from reading the book series. Yet, Harry Potter has been such a positive influence on my so many lives. Evident through the movies, theme parks, stores, and much more, J.K. Rowling’s series has been an overwhelming success for many reasons (“Because it’s his…”). In order to encourage
Imagine discovering that you’re not an ordinary person, but a wizard with magnificent, magical powers. Imagine attending a school where you’ll study transfiguration and charms instead of trigonometry and chem. Imagine the thrill of flying across the sky on a broomstick. These adventures and many others are waiting to be experienced in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by novelist J. K. Rowling. This fanciful and entertaining tale has taken the youth of the nation by storm, and its sales have only been surpassed by the book’s sequels, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
My grandmother introduced me to reading before I’d even entered school. She babysat me while my parents were at work, and spent hours reading to me from picture books as my wide eyes drank in the colorful illustrations. As a result, I entered my first year of school with an early passion for reading. Throughout elementary and middle school, I was captivated by tales of fire-breathing dragons, mystical wizards, and spirited foreign gods. A book accompanied me nearly everywhere I went, smuggled into my backpack or tucked safely under my arm. I was often the child who sat alone at lunch, not because she didn’t have friends, but because she was more interested in a wizards’ duel than the petty dramas of middle school girls. I was the child who passed every history test because she was the only kid who didn’t mind reading the textbook in her spare time, and the child who the school librarian knew by name. Reading provided a
Ever since J.K. Rowling first introduced Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone in 1997, children and adults have read and loved the series. It has gained such popularity that all of the books have been made into major motion pictures, and a Harry Potter attraction has been opened in Universal Studios, Florida. Though the readers love Rowling’s intricate and exciting story lines, many controversies have arisen from these stories, not only in the United States, but also in various countries around the world. Perhaps the biggest controversy is the religious implications perceived by some critics. Although these critics believe that the series promotes paganism and encourages evil actions, these theories should not be taken so seriously.
Many books have been questioned and challenged. Even as far as to banning them. But what exactly is a banned book and why are they banned? A banned book is a book that has been censored by an authority, a government body, a library, or a even school system. A book that has been banned is actually removed from a library or school system. The actual contextual reasons as to banning them is use of explicit violence, gore, sexuality, explicit language, religion, or dark times in history. On the non-contextual side of the reason why they are banned books are usually because with the best intentions to protect people, frequently children, from difficult philosophies and information. Teachers, or even more common adults, often censor books from children if they feel that the books have maniacal or controversial ideas in them. In some scenarios, those who are censoring books think that a book might be appropriate for a certain, or several groups in society. A book that might be perfectly fine for a ninth grader might easily be horrendous or confusing to a fourth grader. Thus having them exposed and influenced to thinking a certain way and act upon what they have just read. Well at least that’s what people think is going to happen anyways. But honestly, reading books of any genre gives us knowledge, entertainment, and imagination so therefore no books or novels should be banned and is ultimately dependent on the reader’s choice.
In two thousand and one it was challenged in Bend Oregon, Iowa, California, Alabama, New York, and many other areas for promoting violence and scary content, (Titus). The Harry Potter books contain intense scenes and the movies are rated PG-13. Some events that could lend to that rating are the visions and rebirth of Voldemort. Another incident when parents were upset about mature content occurred in Russell Springs KY high school it was proposed for removal by teacher's prayer group because it has with barbaric characters, (Titus). Harry Potter has many ghosts, trolls, and otherworldly creatures. The descriptions of these animals has been a cause for challenging this series. Harry Potter series having dark material is one reason people dislike the business but others say Harry Potter is a dark character
The Harry Potter series, written by J. K. Rowling, is about a young boy who finds out he is a wizard and uses his magic powers to vanquish evil. The series is currently the target of many protestors, as they scrutinize and penalize the books for their creative and imaginative topics. Ranging from education to religion, protestors' reasoning's behind theses attacks have sparked nationwide debates. Everything from censorship to book burning, protesting and pulling theses books from school shelves, have been done to outlaw the Potter series. Elizabeth D. Schafer, author of "Harry and History", summarizes how these controversies stem forth and how she disagrees with the protests against the Potter series. Censorship of the Harry Potter books is a vain attempt to maintain control and power over citizens as their rights and freedom of choice is being severely violated by forbidding the viewing of certain sources of entertainment.
Some of the best literature, also happens to be some of the most controversial pieces. The books mentioned above, some were banned because of language, other because of racism and sexuality, but all of them were important pieces about life lessons people should read about. I believe that books like these actually enhance our learning abilities, and not daunt them. I believe that it should not be up to the government, or the FCC, to control what citizens do or do not read in school systems. They have taken away enough by taking The Bible out of schools, it is a right our founding fathers gave to us when this country was first established, t...
Belcher, C. and Stephenson, B. H. (2011). Teaching Harry Potter: The Power of Imagination in
One of the most distinguishing characteristics of children's films is the centrality of the moral. Although Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone teaches children many lessons, but the main one is that good will always conquer evil. Right from the beginning of the film, audiences are shown how poorly Harry gets treated ...
The Harry Potter phenomenon had its humble beginning all the way back in the 1990s, when the first book, written by J. K. Rowling, came out in the shops. The main protagonist, a scrawny, young child wizard, who wore round glasses, had an immediate appeal to the readers, but no one at that time knew that the young boy would turn out to be the literary icon of the last decade. The popularity of the book resulted in it being translated into various language...
Harry Potter is no stranger to controversy, heated debates, and a twitter savvy Author. Only just last year, 2016, the boy who lived and his friends were coming to the stage in a theatrical adaptation of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child creating more controversy with one particular casting – Hermione. In the past, the controversy merely spread by word of mouth and through news reports as many religious followers denounced the book as potentially being satanic in nature due to its themes of witches and wizardry. The uproar only boosted sales. In the time of social media, controversy and opposition have evolved with the technology and platforms that allow people to come together.
One of the most read series in all literature is Harry Potter. The seven-book succession has sold over 400 million copies and has been translated into over sixty languages. What is it that makes this series so wildly famous? What is it about the boy who lived that makes frenzied readers flock to their local bookstore at midnight on the day of the release to buy the latest installment? How is a story set in a world that doesn’t exist about wizards, witches, magic, and mystical creatures so popular? The series has been able to earn its spot on the New York Times Bestseller list and has granted author J.K. Rowling multiple awards because it is relatable. It is not the setting or the events in the plot of the story that we relate to. We relate to what Harry, his friends, mentors, teachers, caretakers, and even enemies feel. Harry is in a lot of ways exactly like us. He represents some of the good characteristics that all of us have as well as the bad. The series as a whole, is about one thing that is stressed over and over again in the novels, love. The Harry Potter series is one of the most read sequences of novels because the central theme is love and self-sacrifice, and readers are looking for a novel that shows them just that.
Before reading Harry Potter, I very rarely read for pleasure. I found reading boring, almost old fashioned. My frame of mind more readily paralleled Danny Divito in the movie Matlida, who says that “[t]here's nothing you can get from a book that you can't get from a television faster.” While my view of reading as a child could be summed up in that quote, everything changed when I was introduced to Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I can remember to this day when my Dad began reading Harry Potter to me, and how I did not understand just how much this book would change me. Harry Potter and his world of wizardry became my own personal Shangri-La, my escape, my own world. Anytime I wanted, I could ascend to a world of fantasy and explore the depths of my own imagination in a way that I had never been capable of doing before. I became obsessed with the book, reading it before, during, and after sc...