Harry Potter is Demonic

Welcome to the magical world

Sorry for the delay on this post, but my sister was a slacker, and the library still didn't have any Harry Potter books (crazy, right?). Nonetheless, here we go.

Holding the DVDs because I don't own the book(s)
Also, I live in a basement. Much like
how Harry lived in a closet...

As a young and impressionable youth, I found my footing in the world though the threshold of a church. I went to youth group every Wednesday, played tambourine in the church band, and attended church camp during the summer months. For a long time, I didn't swear, didn't drink, didn't do drugs, or have sex. Really, I was an all around upstanding kid (aside from that time I locked my friend in the basement...).

One day as I was walking in, the pastor's wife got my attention. (I can't remember exactly how the conversation went, so I'm going to use the CREATIVE portion of creative non fiction so you guys get the idea.)

She had soft wavy brown hair and large glasses that completely covered her eyes. "You like to read, right?" she asked.

"I do," I said. "I just heard about these books, Harry Potter, have you read them?"

A worried look crossed her face, and then she said, "I've heard of them, and they're demonic. You shouldn't read them. They have magic in them, and magic comes from the devil."

"Okay," I said, and I took the message home to my sisters. "Don't read Harry Potter, you'll go to Hell!"

So...rather than read the books, years later, my oldest sister took me to the movies, and from there I continued watching (most of) the rest of them (I still actually haven't seen the last one, though twitter and Facebook has already ruined the end for me). In 2011, though I wasn't a huge Harry Potter fan (yea, sure the movies were fun, but sometimes I lost interest) I drove to Orlando, Florida for Leaky Con's LitDay to meet amazing authors, and hear panels about the industry.

The atmosphere was infectious. They were releasing the last Harry Potter movie, those in the audience were going to be the first ones to watch it, before the rest of America even got the chance. Everyone was buzzing with excitement, and lost in the mass of kids and adults dressed like they were ready to attend Hogwarts, I found myself getting excited, too.

Though I'd originally planned to bail out after the authorly panels were over, I found myself in a cushioned seat in a large room as the crowd hushed. Arthur Levine (the man who edited all of the Harry Potter books) entered the room. As he took the podium, cheers erupted, I'm pretty sure some people in the audience cried, and I looked at them like they were crazy (or, possibly, devil worshipers).

"When I met Jo, she looked hungry. As many of you know she was on foodstamps..." and from there he told the tale of meeting a starving author, with kids, with a lot to lose...She'd been rejected by several publishers and agents. No one believed in her story, but she did.

My sister. She is sad, too.

He told the audience about how Harry was hungry; he lived in a closet, was hated by the family he lived with, and he wanted food, and friends, and to belong somewhere. He was hungry for other people, hungry to actually experience life. The wizardry was just an added perk.

As he spoke, I had that Oh my God, moment. The one that tells me I spent x-amount of years missing out on something big because my church, a church I loved whole heartedly, told me those books were devil worshiping. I missed out on reading a great series, on being a part of something that truly moved people, and connected them to each other. Most of all, I missed out on something that got people and kids to read.

By proxy, my sister also missed out because I was a zealous Christian girl, upholding the word of God (nowhere in the Bible does it say don't read Harry Potter). (She is still kind of bitter about this one...)

All Harry wanted to was to be loved. In the end, I think that's what a lot of kids these days want. I know that's what I want. Well, that, and a nice package of mint oreos...

As I've been working on my memoir, I've been becoming increasingly angry with the things the church told me. For the record, I am still a Christian. I still pray on a daily basis, and love God (or my Higher Power for those of you who attend Alanon or AA).

Within the last year, I've become adamantly pro-choice and am becoming more vocal about it by the day. In College, one of my friends jumped from the Mackinaw Bridge, and I stopped believing suicides go to Hell. A boy who helped lead me toward God recently came out in the last few years, and thus, I stopped believing gays go to Hell, because he was the most passionate Christian I have ever met. The church taught me a lot about life, and I'm slowly starting to see that what I was told may have been vastly incorrect. (I'll be taking some of these topics on through this blog, hopefully you'll stick around through the journey.)

After Mr. Levine's speech, I no longer think that Harry Potter is demonic. Though I still didn't stick around to watch the movie with everyone, or attend the dance party, one of my life goals is to read the books, and at long last take part in something that has influenced my generation.

The moral of this post is: don't be afraid to read. Don't be afraid to be a part of something. Books are there to help you find what you're looking for, to test your beliefs (in a safe, non-cocaine type of environment), and take you on adventures the laws of gravity don't allow you to.

And for those of you writing the books, keep writing. Never stop pushing boundaries because your words may someday help save lives.

Happy Monday.

Banned Books Week: September 24-October 1

I'm not really a person for rules and regulations, or being told what to do. I don't like that one of my three jobs requires that I to wear my hair down to hide my eyebrow rings and then stud my lip ring. I also don't appreciate being told that I can't wear an actual RING for my lip at another place of employment. I try to veer away from jobs that mandate "No visible tattoos" (mine is easily covered by my watch, but it still bothers me) or that I have to "Look clean" (What does that even mean, anyway? What ever happened to no shower Fridays?). It makes me feel like they're forcing me be someone I'm not..It makes me unGodly uneasy. 


I like being able to make decisions for myself, be able to look the way I want to, do the things I want to. I don't think people should fit into certain molds that society creates, I don't like capital punishment or speed limits....I don't like things being off limits. It just kind of bugs me. One of the big ones that gets to me is banned books.


As Banned Books Week continues in full swing, I was kind of starting to wonder: 


Do you ever find the list, and read books off of it just to feel rebellious?


I did (maybe still do :) ). 


As a teen, I felt some form of vindication when I'd read the list and come find that a book that I'd loved was there, on the damn list. After that vindication, I'd feel anger. Overwhelming anger; who are these people trying to keep these amazing books out of kid's hands? More importantly, the question I kept falling back to was WHY? Why on earth are these pages so offensive to people that they wouldn't want them supplied in libraries, in schools? 


To this day, I still don't really understand why people ban books, or burn them. (Okay, some exceptions....like...you know, hate literature. I'd burn that quick.) But books, wonderful, character evolving books. Sure, at the start of the story, they can be racist, and there may be awful words....but what if at the end, the character learns that people really are equal, that hate doesn't solve anything? Why would we keep this from kids? Why would we keep these lessons from PEOPLE? Even if the character doesn't arc well enough to learn their lesson, as a parent, teacher, person...why not engage with the person reading the book;


Did you like it?
Why?
Do you agree with the way this character thinks?
Why?


Dig deep, give advice. Books give a great platform for launching conversations. Every time I see someone with a book, I ask what they're reading, if they like it, what it's about, if they're on GoodReads..etc. (It might just be because I'm a huge nerd....) 


But what if these stories help save someone? Why would we keep this hidden away?


Anyway, I pulled up the lists for the 90s HERE and the 00s HERE. Here are some of the books that either I've read or currently own and will read some day:

90s:
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
The Giver, by Lois Lowry
My Brother Sam is Dead, by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
Goosebumps (series), by R.L. Stine
Go Ask Alice, by Anonymous (My teacher, Mrs. Watchorn totally made me write up a permission slip for my mom to sign so I could read this book so she could have a clean conscious. It is an amazing book...)
Julie of the Wolves, by Jean Craighead George
Fallen Angels, by Walter Dean Myers
The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut (Side note, may have almost cried the day I found out he died. I loved this man)
The Face on the Milk Carton, by Caroline Cooney
Where’s Waldo?, by Martin Hanford
The Drowning of Stephen Jones, by Bette Greene


00s (Without the titles mentioned above)
His Dark Materials (series), by Philip Pullman 
Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson 
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini 
Summer of My German Soldier, by Bette Green 
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold 
Cut, by Patricia McCormick 
Grendel, by John Gardner


Moral of the story is, I love books...Like I love them. When I get published, I'd like to some day make it on the banned books list, because I will then I feel like it'd cause me to write more, and more. I'd be on a stupid list with a lot of other amazing authors and best yet, PEOPLE. 


So, to those of you who read what's banned:


Keep reading strong.