The Pendragon's Hall

The Pendragon was relieved to see that the Gwinnett County schoolboard in Georgia rejected calls from a mother in their district to ban the Harry Potter books from their school library. I am sympathetic to parents' pleas to have a say in what their children read (who better?) but the particular mother interested in banning Harry Potter told the local news that she had not even read the series to see if there was anything objectionable in them because that would be "hypocritical." The problem with this is it feeds the idea that all concerned parents simply spout the ideas of others. While I personally would still disagree with the woman that Harry Potter is more objectionable than other books and deserves censorship, at least then her views could be entertained as being informed decisions of a concerned parent not simply the knee-jerk reaction of someone listening to the views of others, many of whom have also not read the books. I would never suggest she let her children read them if they are young and she is uncomfortable with them, but she should not lead a crusade against the series as a whole if she is not informed on the subject. If she reads them herself and still feels the same way, then she has a right to try to convince others, but as long as she has no textual authority she has nothing to rest her case on and she gives other, actually informed parents, a bad name.