US official: harry potter encourages witchcraft

[feller469]

With regard to Ms Rowling I am reminded of something Gore Vidal said about the age of great writing requiring an age of great reading. Take away the great readers and you will lose the great writers. They will all be knocking out screenplays instead. Harry Potter, more than any other book, turned and continues to turn on a whole generation of children onto the act of reading for pleasure. If this only becomes a lifetime habit for a fraction of her audience then JK Rowling has performed an immesurable service for a legion of writers and has helped kick up the national average IQ by half a click.

I don't think the Bush administration put getting the kids to read too high on the agenda list. "Leave No Child Behind" pretty much has succeeded by lowering the standards to advance.

Let the people get their information from a minimum of controlled sources and keep them in line (i.e. fearful and ignorant).

 

[busenbust]

Are they trying to compare JK Rowling(Harry Potter) to John Steinbeck(of mice and men and Grapes of Wrath) and Harper Lee(To Kill a Mockingbird).

I would not consider Harry Potter a great book at all.

^^Somewhat I agree; probably the popularity - box office receipts - of the film has defined the popularity of the book. That's what I notice.

It's a popular book for tweens but not a great work of non-fiction such as Twain, Steinbeck, Lee etc....

Agreed, that's what I meant to infer in my above post:thumbsup: I see a lot of teenagers (including my nieces) playing 'catch-up': they love the film(s) and then revert to the book(s). Nothing wrong with that. Good to see teenagers actually read, so that's a plus point IMO

 

[tittenman]

Fucking politicians havent got any real policies ideas, so jump aboard any photo opportunity in order increase their popularity some more!

 

[Jane Burgess]

It's a popular book for tweens but not a great work of non-fiction such as Twain, Steinbeck, Lee etc....

It is a popular series for all ages. There are plenty of adults with no kids that watch those movies and read the books.

 

[gunslingingbird]

Oh, for fuck's sake, get a life!!! There was also one school district in, I believe, Georgia that banned Harry Potter books for the same reason. It might have been Tennessee, I can't relly remember, but it was somewhere in the South, where peopledon't listen to The Beatles because of a blasphemous claim that John Lennon made over thirty years ago. He was probably stoned at the time, too. flylicker

 

[anomaly]

So do many religions......................:yinyang:

 

[StanScratch]

I am sure the W administration considered banning 2001 so the robots wouldn't take over the Earth.