“One huge saving grace to the HP books is the leitmotif of self-sacrifice, including the sacrifice of one’s very life, to save others. (As others have pointed out, this is a very good and even Christian-by-accident motif by Rowling.) It is hard for me to accept the argument that a book teaching such concepts is evil.”
By itself, teaching self-sacrifice isn’t evil (unless you’re an objectivist :)
But HP combines that with the message that “Really cool kids practice magic and summon demons.” My kids don’t get to read that message.
Das Kapital taught about making poor people more prosperous. Does that make a children’s adaptation called “Cool Kids are Communists!” good reading material for your kids?
One, two, or a hundred good ideas don’t make up for marketing evil in kids books.
Actually, no, the HP books do NOT send “the message that ‘Really cool kids practice magic and summon demons.’”
No offense, but because you have your fundmental facts wrong, your opinions — based on such misconceptions — persuade me only about you, not about the books that you’ve not read or have inserted non-existent materials into.
>>But HP combines that with the message that “Really cool kids practice magic and summon demons.”<<
Which demons? Can you give an example of one of the students summoning demons? Because I must have forgotten it.