The Mystery of Harry Potter - A Catholic Family Guide

catholiccompany.com ^ | Nancy Carpentier Brown

[paltz]

WHAT EVERY FAMILY NEEDS TO KNOW...

The adventures of the boy wizard have provoked a vigorous debate among Christians. Whether your children have read the series or are planning to in the future, The Mystery of Harry Potter: A Catholic Family Guide will help you appreciate and address the series' underlying moral and spiritual themes.

Using her natural teaching skills and parenting experience, author Nancy Brown has created a must-read for every Catholic family as she walks you through her journey of discovery:

• Are the stories compatible with the Catholic faith?
• What moral and spiritual issues are addressed?
• What kind of role model is Harry Potter?
• How can I talk about these issues with my children?
• How are the movies different from the books?

  Here is a special word from the author to our customers.

  Dear Readers,

  I want you to know that I struggled with the Harry Potter issue for years. This book is a result of many months of research and prayer; my attempt to discern the facts and determine if Harry Potter was suitable material for my family. I am quite picky about what books our family reads. I either pre-read books or rely heavily on book reviews from sources I trust, usually in the Catholic homeschooling world. We don't watch TV in our house, and I carefully monitor what books our children bring home from the library.

  I was initially afraid of the Harry Potter books. From what I'd read and heard, the books were to be avoided in the Catholic home. There were dangers and we have many other choices in children's literature, so why choose something dangerous?

  However, with the popularity of the books, it was difficult to avoid the topic. After years of banning the books from our home, and with the help of discussions with a trusted Catholic homeschooling mother of seven, I finally decided that I had to do the work of finding out for myself what was in the Harry Potter books.

  What I found surprised me. I found an epic tale of good vs. evil. In complete keeping with fairy tales of old, the Harry Potter stories, I found, resonate with the human heart not because they are evil, but because they are good. It is good for us to read tales where evil must be overcome through difficult means because our lives are like that every day. I found elements that resonated with me, with my faith, with the spiritual life, and, after much research, prayer and thought, decided that despite all I'd heard to the contrary, the Harry Potter books were, in fact, good reading for our family.

  I wanted each Catholic family to be able to decide for themselves if Harry Potter was right for them. I don't think there can be any blanket statements such as "Harry Potter books are evil"; nor should anyone say, "Harry Potter is fine, just let your kids read them." I suggest in my book that if you do want to read them, or to let your children read them, they should be read together, as a family. The books provoked many discussions in our home, and in order to participate in those discussions, the parents need to know the names of the characters, how they act, who is friends with whom and so forth. In other words, the parent must read Harry Potter in order to discuss Harry Potter.

  So, I hope that this book will help anyone who is in that phase of discernment: wondering about Harry Potter or wondering if the books should come home from the library or not. By reading The Mystery of Harry Potter, I hope to give you the tools to decide what's right for your family.

  Thank you,

  Nancy Carpentier Brown

  Reviews

  "Now comes a fine appreciation of Rowling's achievement from a first rate writer, believer, and (to top it off) Chestertonian Catholic. Thanks, Nancy Brown, for doing justice to the greatest Christian fantasy epic of our generation." -- Mark P. Shea, Senior Content Editor, CatholicExchange.com

  "At last, the voice of Christian common sense is heard! Nancy Brown's careful study will provide reliable guidance to Catholic parents who seek to practice, and impart to their children, an attitude to contemporary fiction that is both open and discerning. I warmly recommend this book." --Father Pierre Ingram, CC, S.T.L.

[proxy_user]

If she taught in the English department of the University of Virginia in the 60s and early 70s, her job would be much easier. To those guys, every book was a Christian allegory, if you read at the anagogic level. Too much hermaneutics too soon.

[50sDad]

It’s been a year since I read the Phoenix novel, so if I mis-speak myself here, don’t jump all over me, but…

You want to talk evil, I mean real, pure, Elemental Evil? Umbridge, the “teacher” in the latest movie. And it’s clearly an allegory for the state of education in both England and America, as well as a cloaked warning about how Evil infiltrates us.

Presented for your approval: Delores Umbridge, late of Hogwart’s Academy. Brought in at the behest of the Council of Magic, she supplants Dumbledore, and the curriculum changes radically. Defense Against the Dark Arts class, designed to make the next generation of magic-users well informed about the nature of Evil and how it attacks, to give them the practical knowledge of self-defense, is suddenly entirely book learning without any practical practice. Magic deemed “too dangerous” to the children by the State is suddenly off limits. Under her rule, Harry Potter, who KNOWS that the ancient evil is rising, is ridiculed and made to look foolish; like Churchill, his warnings about a very real and horrible danger are brushed aside and ignored. There is every indication to any first-year wizard that she is in the pocket of the Dark Side, actively working to weaken any challenge to Voltemort’s return.

Take Harry as George Bush, warning the West that an evil worse than Hitler is preparing to attack. Take Umbridge as Neville Chamberlain, working to lull everyone back to sleep, sleep, sleep, if not out right working for Hitler. Hers is the condescending, big-government evil of “we know better than you do, little man. Just let us handle it.” Hers is the touchy-feely “If we just put our hands over our eyes, maybe the Big Bad Islamic Terrorists will like us and go away.”

And do you know that in the MSN review of this latest movie, the reviewer had the brass buttons to label Umbridge as “McCarthyian”? Can you conceive of this? Liberals so entrenched, so blinded by their own limited, tiny point-of-view that when greeted with Delores Umbridge, the bleak staring face of fascist totalitarianism, that they don’t see Big Brother? Oh no, they see their poor socialist comrades of the last century, hounded out of jobs in the entertainment industry by old frothing-mouthed Joe McCarthy!

[SengirV]

Ugh, it’s a freaking popular series of books people, it’s not the downfall of Christianity. Why not outlaw any book that isn’t the bible. Grow up already.

*note* I’m not bashing you paltz, just the concept of the article you posted.

[Emrys]

First she needs to edit the Potter oeuvre so it can be read. JK Rowlings has some very good ideas, but she is one of England's least talented writers. Have tried to get through the first volume 3 times and just couldn't do it.

[stuartcr]

I have to ask if the series’ underlying moral and spiritual themes were the author’s intent, or just perceived/interpreted by those that read it?

[ikka]

Once, just once, I wish that someone would take on HP and point out how lousily written they are.

They do NOT compare with Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, Narnia (or even the Space Trilogy) by CS Lewis, etc.

That people in their mid-teens, and adults, are reading and enjoying this series for simpletons, speaks to the deterioration of literacy of the public.

[Loyolas Mattman]

But they are reading, indeed. How many children do you think start off with “Potter” and graduate to more mature fare? A fair lot, I’d say...

[Proud_USA_Republican]

I saw a lot of parallels to the war on terror in this movie. My father who I watched the movie with mentioned it as well walking out at the end.

The ministry of magic leaders taking the democrat liberal denial approach of how to deal with it. Just pretend Voldemort and the death eaters doesn’t exist, and it won’t exist. Throw those who try to vocally warn about it under the bus. Character assasinate them in the press.

That whole movie is a lesson about appeasement of terrorist threats, like Nazi Germany or Islamic facists.

[A Strict Constructionist]

Finally an intelligent comment, not an attack.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

Did you read the article, or did you assume that the article was bashing the Potter series?

Isn’t that what you accuse bashers of the series of doing?

[mware]

She was a guest on Sirus 159 ( Catholic Channel) earlier this week. She made common sense to me. Recommended reading the books before allowing their children to read the series.

Said that as the series progresses the books become more dark, and may require guidance. Recommended reading it with the kids.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

Our family is catholic, but my sister’s family went evangelical christian when she married her husband whose sister is married to a christian minister. They have a beautiful family and raise their children in a caring, loving home so I don’t have much negative to say about my sister. I love them all very much.

She has banned her kids from reading any of the Harry Potter books or watching the movies because that’s what the church told them. The words I’ve heard from her is that the books contain, “soccery, witchcraft, etc.....”.

But I find it strange at the same time that they enthusiastically allow their children to watch and read the Lord of the Rings, star wars, and Pirates of the Caribean movies, both of which contains massive amounts of the same type of soccery, magic, witchcraft, whatever, in these. The only main difference I see is that in Harry Potter, the main characters are children/young adults.

I find that very strange and have never been able to get a clear answer from my sister on this, so I stopped asking.

I have read the Potter books and enjoy them. I think its really positive thing that in this age where T.V. and video games dominating children’s lives, that these books have gotten millions of children into reading.

[mware]

I teach 7th graders and I often have had to ask my students to put away their leisure reading. Many of them are reading the Harry Potter series. Some have gone on to read The Hobbit, and the LOTR trilogy.

[mware]

Heck I am going to be in line with the kids to get the last book. I just hope some of the idiots who are selling them do not give away who gets killed before the kids can read the book.

I am half afraid to even come on the internet in fear that some git will give it away before I get to read that portion of the book.

I am even afraid to check out the chapter titles.

[jimt]

First she needs to edit the Potter oeuvre so it can be read. JK Rowlings has some very good ideas, but she is one of England's least talented writers. Have tried to get through the first volume 3 times and just couldn't do it.

An astonishing comment, I must say. To get more readable than this series you have to go to the "See Jane run. Run, Jane, run." level. Rowlings is undeniably an outstanding writer of riveting prose. Well, 99.9999999999% of us think so, anyway.

[from occupied ga]

I want you to know that I struggled with the Harry Potter issue for years

Wow, this is absolute proof that Nancy Brown doesn't have a life. I can't imagine a more trivial issue than whether or not a kid's fiction was "dangerous"

The woman is like Gwinnett county's own Laura Mallory - a complete imbecile (however, unlike mallory she apparently is not also a militant meddling busybody who thinks her own views should be forced on everyone else.

[Oztrich Boy]

First she needs to edit the Potter oeuvre so it can be read.

Apparently it is easy to dismiss sales of 300 million+

[SengirV]

Yes I read the article. The point of the article is to alleviate the concerns that HP will turn your kids into Satan worshipers.

I didn’t think I had to explain that, but I guess I was wrong.

[Tanniker Smith]

I saw the book at Barnes & Nobles yesterday, almost by accident. It was on the spiritual/religious/self-help table of books and not with the Harry Potter stuff. (There was a second HP-influenced book as well, but I forget the title.)

I flipped through it. Interesting, at any rate, but I don't really read those types of books all too often.