By Katie Lafferty
Despite recent controversy concerning images of witchcraft in Harry Potter books, the popular children’s series will remain in local elementary school classrooms and libraries.
Hyacinth Haddad, communications co-ordinator for the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, says the board has no plans to restrict the Harry Potter series in any way.
“It’s not an issue at all. We haven’t discussed it at all,” says Haddad.
The Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board shares this attitude with one exception. The fourth and latest book in the series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is accessible only to Grade 7 and 8 students.
“This is mainly because it’s a little heavier in the area of violence. Not because of the magic or anything, but because of the violence issue,” says Dale Henderson, co-ordinator of educational programs for the Ottawa-Carleton Catholic School Board. “Within the books there certainly is fantasy, magic, references to supernatural beings, which are common elements in fables, legends, fairy tales, and the like. And therefore, to restrict based upon that criteria would also be removing a lot of other very valuable literature that children need to be exposed to.”
Cynthia Pohran, chair of the Ottawa-Carleton Assembly of School Councils, says that local elementary schools have much bigger issues than Harry Potter to deal with, such as pending school closures and shortages of textbooks.
“If you phoned up a school council in the inner core, inside the greenbelt, they would tell you they don’t even have time to breathe, let alone think about Harry Potter books,” says Pohran.
Even so, Pohran does not let her daughter read Harry Potter books. “We don’t encourage our children to read about the occult, even if it’s put in a fantasy mode,” she says.
The debate over Harry Potter books hit schools in April after the Durham Regional School Board, near Toronto, placed heavy restrictions on the Harry Potter series throughout its 100 elementary school classrooms. This was in response to complaints from parents.
Although the books were still available in school libraries, children had to get parental permission before teachers could read the stories aloud in class.
However, Bev Freedman, superintendent of programs for Durham Regional School Board says that the restrictions were lifted on Sept. 18, although there will still be fundamentalist Christians in the Durham region and elsewhere that oppose the books’ portrayals of witchcraft.
“The board subsequently has re-looked at the issue and the restrictions are lifted and parents who are upset will have to challenge the books through a process of policy that we have for parents to follow through to challenge material,” she says.
Also, a branch of the Jacksonville Public Library in Florida received complaints from parents and church groups after it gave about 200 Harry Potter fans the “Hogwarts’ Certificate of Accomplishment” from the fictional boy’s wizardry school, at a July release party of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
The library no longer gives out the certificates.
Barbara Garner, a professor of children’s literature at Carleton University who claims that “the values are good” in Harry Potter books, was pleased to hear that the Durham Regional School Board had lifted their restrictions.
“They’re inventive, they’re funny, I mean they’re gimmicky at times, but they’ve got good, solid values,” she says.
Garner insists that the message in the series is a good one. “If it gives any message, it is that if you study hard and really want something and work for it, then you’ll be recognized,” she says.
“What better lesson than that to give to young people?”
The fifth book in the Harry Potter series is due out sometime next year.