Some Thoughts on the Harry Potter Series

Lifecenter ^ | Michael O'Brien author of "A Landscape with Dragons" and "Father Elijah"

[Aquinasfan]

Some Thoughts on the Harry Potter Series
by Michael D. O'Brien

Michael O'Brien is the author of eleven books, including several best-selling Catholic novels, notably, Father Elijah. He has authored children's books as well, and the critically praised assessment of the pagan invasion of children's culture, "A Landscape With Dragons: the Battle for Your Child's Mind," published by Ignatius Press.

There is currently a strong controversy raging over J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Because I have six children of my own, all of them avid readers with an interest in fantasy literature, I have followed it closely. It is interesting to note that the truly reasonable arguments are all on the side of caution regarding the Potter series. By contrast, the pro-Harry articles lack any serious reflection on the issues involved. Their opinions can generally be boiled down to this: "Now, now, let's not get paranoid here. Isn't it wonderful to see kids enthusiastic about reading?" That is no argument at all, because there are a great many things to be cautious about in our present secular culture (calm vigilance is not necessarily paranoia), and children are frequently enthusiastic about unhealthy interests. Librarians around the English-speaking world have noted that due to the unprecedented marketing pressure and media attention surrounding these books, and the resulting fascination young readers have for them, a spin-off phenomenon is occurring. Among the young, an interest in witchcraft, sorcery, and allied occult activity is growing at an astonishing rate. Some libraries now put their occult section beside the Potter books, to make access easier for young readers. Thus, millions of children, including large numbers of Catholic children, are getting involved in spiritually and psychologically dangerous activity. Harry Potter provided the role model.

I was not impressed by the four books in Rowling's series, despite all the media hype that tells us how wonderful they are for young readers. And I strongly disagree with those reviewers (sadly, even some Catholic reviewers) who compare her work to solid Christian fantasy writing such as C.S. Lewis's Narnia series, or J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, or the imaginative novels of George MacDonald. The comparison is only superficial. At root, Rowling's objective is to interest the young in a spiritual path that is the converse of what healthy Christian fantasy is about. The use of "magic" in Christian fantasy is always for the reinforcing of the moral order of the universe, the development of man's proper use of freedom. Rowling, by contrast, tries to turn that order topsy-turvy. The subtle and unsubtle manipulation which she uses to control the child's mind is obvious from the first few pages, prompting one to wonder if this is a deliberate attempt at indoctrination. Among the many dubious messages, presented with charm and power, there are these: occult activity is liberating, noble, exciting, and not what your parents and Christians in general say about it. Coupled to this message is the gross characterization of traditional families, and anyone else who objects to the occult, as abusive hypocrites. The line between good and evil is significantly shifted, and the child enticed into a radically changed worldview, one in which activities known for over 4000 years to be extremely dangerous to mind and soul are now presented as positive forces.

Potter-frenzy and Potter-hype are suddenly everywhere, from school to shopping-center to library, affecting many millions of children. The promotion of such books even in Catholic schools should alert us to the fact that the Catholic community is suffering a grave loss of discernment. In a secular culture searching in all the wrong places for answers to the meaning of life, and for a "spirituality" to replace lost or weakened faith, occult movements and spiritual experimentation of all sorts are having a revival that has not been seen in the Western world since the early centuries of the Church. What is particularly disturbing is the fact that otherwise sensible people see no problem in introducing to children books that promote such activities-activities strictly forbidden by God and the Church (see Cathechism of the Catholic Church, sections 2116-2117).

The Potter series takes the old Gnostic worldview, makes it look glamorous and exciting, and does so in a way that is proving to be far more seductive than similar books in this field of children's literature. Early Gnosticism was a combination of cult and heresy that came very close to undermining Christianity at its birth, during the first few centuries of the Church. It was only defeated by the efforts of the Church Fathers as they taught, corrected, exhorted and debated with the naïve devotees of this perversion of genuine faith. And here it is again, popping up with unprecedented force, but now aimed at the most vulnerable, most impressionable part of the Body of Christ-our children. Paradoxically, the Potter books have been able to invade the Christian world due to the fact that there are a few admirable virtues promoted in them: Harry the orphan seeks a family-hey, isn't that a desirable family value? Harry the victim-innocent brings down justice on the heads of his tormentors-and don't we want to see justice done? Harry wins the reader's affection and empathy (and the child reader's identification) more readily than the bratty characters in much of children's fantasy literature-isn't it refreshing to have a "nice" boy as a hero? Harry seeks to discover his destiny and unique identity-don't we all? Yes, but in Harry's world, the ends are continually justified by the evil means (conveniently redefined as good). If the author has thrown into the plot a little moralizing for added measure, this is not a valid argument in defense of the books; indeed the whiff of morality makes them that much more deceptive. In this way, the moral order of the universe is deformed in a child's mind far more effectively than by blatantly evil books.

This raises the question: which is the most destructive form of paganism now invading children's culture? A direct assault upon faith by hard-core cultists recruiting on the streets, or an indirect seduction in the pleasant surroundings of your own home? I believe it is the latter, a "soft" form that will do the greatest damage over the long haul, because it brings a spiritually dangerous worldview into good families under the guise of promoting "values" and enthusiasm for reading. But it also prepares a child's developing imagination for worse things to follow. When he has finished reading the Potter series, what will he turn to? There is a vast industry turning out sinister material for the young that will feed their growing appetites. In the wake of likable young Harry's adventures, not-so-likable characters will appear, and they will become role models or, at the very least, images of alternative ways of living. And it should also be noted that Harry himself becomes less likable as the series gets progressively more murky. Regarding the argument sometimes put forward - "There is much good in the book, so why should we be so concerned about the flaws?" - this is not really a valid argument. The flaws in this case are grave distortions of reality in a field where such distortions have often proved disastrous. In my extended family, circle of friends and community, there are a number of people whose lives have been seriously damaged by involvement in the occult. I know three young people who have attempted suicide in acts of despair which they now attribute, years later, to dabbling in the occult. A significant factor in their attraction to the dark side of spirituality, they maintain, was their love of fantasy literature that portrayed this subculture as exciting and rewarding. Only later did they come to realize that, while occultism promises light, it actually delivers a gradual darkening of the mind and weakening of the will. I have talked with parents of children whose lives have gone seriously astray as a result of losing their moral bearings through involvement with the occult. Their anguish and puzzlement is evident as they state how their children were once stable and virtuous, how they had been so certain their child could handle anything. I have talked with priests and psychiatrists who deal with young people damaged in this fashion, and their assessment of the causes consistently points to some "experimenting" with the very activity Rowling presents as a healthy and liberating way of life. In the beginning they felt it to be no more than harmless play, simple imagining, or the acting out of fantasy. We should take note of the fact that in our sensually dominated culture the habit of acting out fantasy is becoming a widespread cultural norm. It varies from voracious consumption of expensive "toys" for all age groups, to trading in one's spouse for a new one found on the internet, to various clubs devoted to immoral activity, to high school murders. Why, then, do we presume that a sensually powerful series of children's books will not affect the young reader's interests and activities? Why have we come to assume so readily that such novels are simply entertainment, that they have no consequences, that the experience of plunging the imagination into that alternative world will remain sealed in an airtight compartment of the mind?

Of course millions of children are not going to suddenly start killing themselves and each other after reading the Harry Potter series, but studies by both secular and religious researchers demonstrate that something unhealthy is at work in the occult revival. And while we must never forget that Christ can forgive and heal the effects of any form of sin, he also calls us to guard the lambs of his flock against such sin, and the near occasions of sin. What is so often forgotten in this particular controversy is that occultism is gravely sinful. Both the Old and New Testaments warn against it with utmost urgency. Occult activity is a misreading of the nature of the war between good and evil on this planet, and the consequences of this in real life can be quite dire. Why, then, are we giving our children false tales about the nature of the war?

Fantasy literature can be a splendid way to introduce them to the great drama of existence, but we are terribly naïve if we fail to make a clear distinction between true fantasy and false fantasy-between healthy imagination and poisoned imagination. We would soon sicken and die if we applied the principle of "a little poison won't harm you" to our diet of food. Would we eat a cake in which a cook had mixed 1% cyanide with 99% good ingredients? It might not kill us, but why would we want to risk being even "mildly" poisoned. To use another metaphor, would we offer our child a bowl of fruit in which ten pieces of fruit were harmless and one had been injected with deadly poison, especially if the fruit were indistinguishable from each other?

How do we distinguish a good piece of "fruit" from a bad one, if in the mind there is no reliable criteria for doing so? How do we discern properly if we have no developed understanding of the moral order of the universe nor a consciousness of the reality of spiritual battle? If we have little or no sense of the crucial role of symbols in the healthy functioning of the mind, how can we accurately assess the spiritual realities represented by those symbols? Simply saying that the corruption of our symbol world, and in the worst cases the inversion of our symbol world, is not poison doesn't change the nature of the poisoned fruit. That's denial, not moderate reasonableness. By the same token, gathering "expert" opinions on the subject isn't very helpful either, because experts come in all varieties these days, even in Christian circles, and few are the people unaffected to some degree by the overwhelming subjectivism of our present social environment.

Parents often underestimate the power of imagination in shaping a child's sense of truth. Parents forget that they themselves grew up in another time and culture. Though theirs was an imperfect world (as is every era of history), basic truths still formed the solid architecture of their times. That is no longer so. Parents also forget that they can sort through good and bad material with more immunity than a child, because they are already formed. A child is still in a state of formation, and for that reason he experiences culture in a very different way than adults do. We can sift (although on the whole even we "grown-ups" aren't doing a very good job of sifting these days), but the child is not yet trained to recognize subtle and even unsubtle falsehood. He is busy learning about the world, and usually he is learning indiscriminately. He absorbs images and understandings of the nature of reality at a foundational level.

Getting our thinking on track according to Biblical and Church principles is essential to seeing what's really happening in this war. In other words, rational discernment. Equally important is the charism of spiritual discernment. Every parent needs to pray daily for an extraordinary grace of discernment, and for divine protection for his children. This isn't extremist or alarmist. This is just normal Christianity. Tragically, Christian faith has been so weakened in the Western world that such statements now strike many an ear as somewhat extreme. We're all a little too eager to prove that we're just normal folks, that our faith doesn't turn us into unpleasant critical people. But Jesus himself calls us to constant vigilance, to exercise the critical faculty of discernment. It is the spirit of the secular world, and the spirit of our adversary, which tells us we should all just relax and stop over-reacting. Of course, it's true that over-reacting doesn't help anyone, and usually makes matters worse. But at the other end of the spectrum is denial, a refusal to face facts, an inability to recognize a real threat to our child's well-being. This, I believe, brings about far worse consequences-again, in the long run. Neither apathy nor panic will reorient our present culture toward a condition of health. What is needed here is wisdom.

And what about the unity issue? Many of the husbands or wives who write to me about the Potter problem say that they can't come to an agreement with their spouses. A general and time-tested principle in Christian family life is that on issues where husband and wife disagree over what is or is not harmful for their child, more prayer is needed. The father's role is paramount in this, because by nature and grace his job is to watch the horizon carefully for anything that threatens the well-being of his family (tigers, bears, drunk drivers, drug-pushers, heretical teachers and unprincipled hawkers of kid-kulture). In a word, his primary focus is exterior.

The mother's role tends to be primarily interior, focused on nurturing (though of course there is considerable overlapping of roles in this regard). For that reason it's inevitable that there will be differences of emphasis and judgement. Most of the parents who contact me about these questions experience some difference of opinion between husband and wife. Prayer can bring these two "lenses" into a single unified focus. By this I do not mean that spouses should resolve their difference of opinion by bartering or compromise. Neither of the lenses work properly without the other; their harmonious function depends on earnest prayer and avoiding superficial decisions. Our culture is continuously pushing us to let down our guard, to make quick judgments that feel easier because they reduce the tension of vigilance. The harassed pace and the high volume of consumption that modern culture seems to demand of us, make genuine discernment more difficult in this regard. But in prayer and waiting on God, we do come through.

As a parent, my daily prayer is: "Oh God, please give me the wisdom of Solomon, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, today. Every day." Without it, I would soon be shaped and molded by whatever forces are flying about in this society. My kids even more so. There is so much bombarding us all the time, with unprecedented power to overwhelm the senses and to confuse our interior radar, that we scarcely have time to make sound decisions before the next wave hits. In such a climate, if one has to choose between over-caution or under-caution, I would say that in the formation of our children's minds, hearts and souls, it's better to lean in the direction of caution rather than laxity-especially during these times when a relentless indoctrination comes at our children from every level of the culture.

A balanced, intelligent and spiritually discerning collection of articles examining the Potter phenomenon is available at the website of St. Joseph's Covenant Keepers, a large international organization for Catholic fathers. The address is: www.dads.org

If you want to consider some in-depth arguments about the nature of the new paganization of children's culture, see the Ignatius Press internet website where an entire section is devoted to what well-known Catholic authors think of the Potter series. The address is: www.ignatius.com See also the highly recommended Catholic Educator's Resource Center, which has a section dealing with the Potter phenomenon. The address is www.catholiceducation.org

[Aquinasfan]

You're a voice in the wilderness.

[ET(end tyranny)]

You're a voice in the wilderness.

As opposed to the 'be all things, to all men', go along with the crowd bunch, even if they are pagan?

[Dan Day]

The only interesting question regarding the Potty series is whether Rowling was involved with channeling spirits before she wrote these books. I suspect she was.

Why don't you describe the parts of the Harry Potter books that you feel support your suspicion.

Wait... You *have* actually read the books before denouncing them, haven't you?

As far as I'm concerned, this series of books can go to hell.

Based on... what? Have you read them? Answer truthfully, now. And why don't you do something that very few "POTTER IS THE DEVIL!" hysterics do -- actually quote *ANYTHING* from the books that support your panic. But hey, in order to actually be able to point to the parts of the books that you find allegedly abhorent, you'd have to actually *read* the things first, wouldn't you? Easier to just vilify them as borderline satanic out of ignorance and call it a day, eh? Or rely on the rantings of someone *else* who hasn't read it, which is just as bad.

Lord of the Rings is probably a better bet.

"Probably"? So you haven't read *that* either, eh?

[Caleb1411]

Harry Potter is a heroic, honest character that captures children's imagination. My son also has read the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings and the Tales of Narnia. There is magic and fantasy, good and evil in all of them. I think you need to relax about the influence this will have on children's interest in the occult.

Although I've read quite a few of C.S. Lewis's works, I'm not personally familiar with any of the Harry Potter books, so I'll simply proffer this excerpt from an article by John Andrew Murray for discussion among those who've read both Lewis and Rowling.

. . .What about Narnia?

Christian fans of Harry Potter insist that the series is no different than C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, a series that many Christian parents accept.

It is true that both authors create fantasy parallel worlds involving young British children who encounter magical creatures. Both develop admirable characters and evil villains. But this is where the comparison ends.

The difference between the two hinges on the concept of authority. From a Christian perspective, authority and supernatural power are linked.

Take a look at Mark 2, where Jesus heals a paralytic. When Jesus first sees the paralytic, He says, "Son, your sins are forgiven." This sets up the following scene:

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow teach like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Immediately Jesus knew . . . that this was what they were thinking . . . and He said to them, "Why are you thinking such things? Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. (Mark 2:6-12)

Christ's power flows from His authority. That's the nature of all legitimate power — it is granted and guided by authority.

When we read Rowling's series, we find that she effectively divorces power from authority. There is no sovereign person or principle governing the use of the supernatural.

Magical power is gained through inheritance and learning. It is not granted by a higher authority, because there is no higher authority — at least none higher than Harry's mentor, Albus Dumbledore, and the evil Lord Voldemort. The two are equal, antagonistic and unaccountable to a higher authority.

In Narnia, power and authority are welded together. That authority is Jesus, in the character of the great lion Aslan — creator and sovereign ruler of Narnia, son of the Emperor Beyond the Sea. Good power is power that is bestowed by Aslan and exercised in accordance with his will. This good power is at work when the children Peter, Susan and Lucy use gifts bestowed on them by an agent of Aslan.

Evil power, on the other hand, is power that is seized or conjured — rather than bestowed — and exercised for selfish ends. Those who resist the temptation to use such power are commended, as was Digory, in The Magician's Nephew. But those who wield it (such as Jadis, also in The Magician's Nephew) and the White Witch (in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) are eventually vanquished by Aslan.

Despite superficial similarities, Rowling's and Lewis' worlds are as far apart as east is from west. Rowling's work invites children to a world where witchcraft is "neutral" and where authority is determined solely by one's cleverness. Lewis invites readers to a world where God's authority is not only recognized, but celebrated — a world that resounds with His goodness and care.

It's a difference no Christian should ignore.

[Humidston]

Interesting how these books radically polarize people.

I've been taught radically polarizing people is one of satan's many weapons.

Let's see:
1. Mommy turns responsibility to daycare.
2. Kiddies reading Harry Potter
3. Publik skools
4. High school - Dungeons and Dragons for sport
5. Ample lessons in safe sex
6. Moral relativism

Pretty well leaves kids empty and brainwashed, IMHO. Recipe for disaster.

[conservative cat]

Anne Rice lives about two blocks from me. She's a nut. She has a life-size nude painting of herself in her foyer, and the painter made no effort to make her look good.

That doesn't surprise me at all. Her books are like junk food to me. They are a really quick and easy read and then I feel ashamed of myself when I'm done! I hadn't read her for a few years and then ran across a couple of her books on sale, recently. She seems to be taming down more than in the past.

[Most_Ridiculous_Blonde]

OY VAY.

Sometimes, I don't know what's worse... the lefties who wanna control my freedom... or the religious zealots that wanna damn everything, burn all my books, and thus control my freedom.

[Spyder]

Amen.

Of course I was corrupted as a child by The Wizard of Oz so the Devil made me say that. Or was it the good witch Glenda?

[tuesday afternoon]

I read the first two books in the series. THE SEcond was much darker than the first. One of the things I found most objectionable was the mandrakes. They are introduced as babies planted in dirt. When they get past adolescence they are to be cut up into little pieces to break the petrification spell.

At the bookstore I saw a bunch of magic, ritual and wiccs books in a display aimed at teenagers. I opened one book at random, and read that prior practitioners used human fat in the making of ritual candles.

[Aquinasfan]

I skimmed the first book and have read sections of the others. It seems like the same joke to me. I don't see the attraction, even from a literary perspective.

How do you feel about the section in the most recent book where one of the baddies cuts off his arm and throws it into the pot to complete his spell? It's about 3/4 of the way through the book.

[Aquinasfan]

It's a difference no Christian should ignore.

Unfortunately, they will. I don't know if it's because they're tone deaf, don't take the occult seriously, or are afraid to take the books away from junior.

[Aquinasfan]

They are introduced as babies planted in dirt. When they get past adolescence they are to be cut up into little pieces to break the petrification spell.

Any Potter fans care to defend this?

At the bookstore I saw a bunch of magic, ritual and wicca books in a display aimed at teenagers. I opened one book at random, and read that prior practitioners used human fat in the making of ritual candles.

Everyone should take a walk through the "teenage" sci-fi/fantasy aisle at any major-chain bookstore. Almost every book is suffused with occultic practices. Harry Potter is the tip of the iceberg.

[Dan Day]

They are introduced as babies planted in dirt. When they get past adolescence they are to be cut up into little pieces to break the petrification spell.

Any Potter fans care to defend this?

Sure -- now would you care to defend your repeated denunciations of books that you admit you've NOT EVEN READ? "Skimming" doesn't count. You have to actually read a book to understand its value, and grasp the context of random passages. Let me know when you have your book burnings, I'll bring a camera.

On pages 91-94 of "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", the students are taking an "herbology" class, learning about the care of magical plants. The Mandrakes are PLANTS.

Even in the real world, there's a plant called mandrake with a reputation for curative or "mystical" powers, probably because the root contains scopalomine (so does belladonna), which has powerful effects when ingested, including (depending on dosage) vomiting, anesthesia, unconsciousness, hallucinations, seizures, or death.

Another reason for the age-old belief that there might be something "magical" about mandrake is the fact that the root is often shaped vaguely like a human body in chubby stick-figure form:

Medieval sketches of mandrake often show it drawn in actual human form. This is the feature that is being playfully presented in the second Harry Potter book. The root is depicted as being not only humanoid-shaped, but actually animated. But no more seriously than is the talking man-eating plant in the film, "Little Shop of Horrors", who sings, "Feed me, Seymour!"

The young mandrake plants are not presented as "cute and cuddly" little human babies, they're presented as something similar to the dangerous gremlins from the movie of the same name. Their voices can kill (the students repot them while wearing impenetrable earmuffs), they have pointed teeth they use to try to bite the students, and they "flail their sharp little fists".

The only passage to liken them to a baby (because the students are working with seedlings) is:

Harry snapped the earmuffs over his ears. They shut out sound completely. Professor Sprout put the pink, fluffy pair over her own ears, rolled up the sleeves of her robes, grasped one of the tufty plants firmly, and pulled hard.

Harry let out a gasp of surprise that no one could hear.

Instead of roots, a small, muddy, and extremely ugly baby popped out of the earth. The leaves were growing right out of his head. He had pale green, mottled skin, and was clearly bawling at the top of his lungs.

Professor Sprout took a large pot from under the table and plunged the Mandrake into it, burying him in dark, damp compost until only the tufted leaves were visible. Professor Sprout dusted off her hands, gave them all the thumbs-up, and removed her own earmuffs.

This is an animated PLANT, just like the one mentioned in the same scene:

"Four to a tray -- there is a large supply of pots here -- compost in the sacks over there -- and be careful of the Venemous Tentacula, it's teething."

She gave a sharp slap to a spiky, dark red plant as she spoke, making it draw in the long feelers that had been inching sneakily over her shoulder.

This plant, like the Mandrakes and so much else in the Harry Potter book, are played for both an eerie overtone (in the fun Holloween sense) and for humor.

And I don't know where the complainer got anything about them being "cut up into little pieces". I don't recall any such passage (which would be too graphic for a children's book). The nearest I've found is:

[Page 144:] "We will be able to cure her, Argus," said Dumbledore patiently. "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris."

"I'll make it," Lockhart butted in. "I must have done it a hundred tiems. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep --"

"Excuse me," said Snape icily. "But I believe I am the Potion master of this school."

There was a very awkward pause.

And then:

[Page 330:] "Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up," he added, twinkling kindly down at her. "You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She's just been giving out Mandrake juice -- I daresay the basilisk's victims will be waking up any moment."

"So Hermione's okay!" said Ron brightly.

"There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny," said Dumbledore.

In both cases the method of making the potion is left up to the reader's imagination. More sensitive readers are free to presume that they just squeeze them for some juice, or even use the leaves. Or not bother considering the method of preparation at all.

[Dan Day]

Unfortunately, they will. I don't know if it's because they're tone deaf, don't take the occult seriously, or are afraid to take the books away from junior.

Maybe they're just not as hysterical as you are.

There's an old saying, "Those who see sex everywhere they look have dirtier minds than those whom they accuse". The same goes for those who see almost everything as "occult"

You know like someone who could seriously claim, "Almost every book is suffused with occultic practices." Know anyone like that?

[Slyfox]

Thanks for posting this. I remember reading a lot as a kid. I liked reading stuff that taught good moral lessons. When I was in the fifth grade I bumped into a book about a group of boys who liked to kill cats. It went into detail as to how the boys felt about swinging those cats around in the air by their tails until they died. And how they laughed. Maybe I am overly sensitive but that book really disturbed me. One may say also say that it was a good thing to see me reading. But it took me a while to get over how those boys really didn't care that they had killed those cats.

When an adult asks my boys about reading Harry Potter, they'd rather comment on how much they liked Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson.

[Aquinasfan]

What do you think about the passage in the fourth book where one of the bad guys cuts off his own arm and tosses it into a cauldron to complete his spell?

[Aquinasfan]

You know like someone who could seriously claim, "Almost every book is suffused with occultic practices." Know anyone like that?

Just walk through the sci-fi/fantasy aisle at Barnes and Noble the next time you're in there and take a look around. Or bury your head in the sand, if you prefer.

[Aquinasfan]

I'm like you. In fact, I was given so much crap to read in high school that I began to associate reading with psychic pain. Upon graduation I vowed that I would never read a book again. When I was in my twenties, I used to brag to my friends, "if it's a book, I haven't read it." I didn't pick up a book to read for pleasure again until I was almost thirty.

In retrospect, it was a healthy decision. Most kids today would be better off not reading anything than reading whatever garbage is being fed to them in school.

[tuesday afternoon]

...Madame Pomfrey was pleased to report that the mandrakes were becoming moody and secretive, meaning they were fast leaving childhood.
"The moment their acne clears up, they'll be ready for repotting again," Harry heard her telling Filch kindly one afternnon. "And after that, it won't be long until we're cutting them up and stewing them." (pg 234)

Pg 86, drawing of a baby mandrake (a screaming baby held up by the green stalks growing from its scalp).

[Mercat]

I'm a practicing Catholic, mass 3x week, etc. and I love Harry Potter and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.