According to the American Library Association, which tracks such things, the amazing Harry Potter books have achieved yet another first: more people demanded their removal from classrooms, school libraries, and reading lists than any other books in 1999. That fact alone will probably prompt the few kids left who haven't read them to start now.

Adults who object to Harry Potter's wizardry are right to feel threatened. Harry Potter is a magician of incredible power! He turns TV-watchers and video-game players into readers right under their parents noses. Any small boy who can accomplish in one stroke what legions of well-meaning adults haven't been able to do is a small boy to be reckoned with. Maybe he SHOULD be banished!

After all, do we want a country full of little bookworms smuggling flashlights under bedcovers? And after Harry Potter, what then? The doings at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry can't continue forever and we all know where this kind of thing can lead. Just imagine hordes of small book-readers sneaking off to places like Oz, or Camelot, or Lilliput, or Narnia. It bears some thinking about.

Pat Schroeder
President and CEO
Association of American Publishers

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