mathmom's blog

I've been reading around on the web about the interaction between Christianity and Harry Potter. Many of the reactions seem to be something like "Harry Potter will get children interested in magic and paganism and worse, and we should not let our children be corrupted!" One of my favorite reactions seems to be about the pope: Pope John Paul II supposedly said that the books were OK, Pope Benedict said that they were very bad (back before he became pope, anyway). Since I read it on the web, it must be true =) Here ( http://decentfilms.com/sections/articles/2567 ) is an article that manages to respond thoughtfully and respectfully to the magic dilemma. I like it for a few reasons: he doesn't just dismiss the biblical and traditional prohibitions against magic as old fashioned, he doesn't say that all magical fiction is bad, he has read and thought seriously about many works I really like. I don't always agree with him, but I appreciate the thought he put ...

I bought the 7th Harry Potter novel a few days ago. To tell the truth, I can't even tell you what its name is, except that I knew I wanted to read it before it came out in paperback and there is no way I'm going to check it out from the library this century. Those of you who know that I read fast might ask if I like the ending. Yes, I do, although I haven't read the middle yet. It seems a bit scandalous, but almost the first thing I did was turn to the ending and see if it ended satisfactoraly. Before you judge me too harshly, keep in mind that I have 3 children, two of whom don't nap and the one who does nap has this tendency to stay up at least an hour in the middle of the night. This means that my reading time is limited to 10 minute spurts during the day between fights, and after they are asleep (when I usually clean the kitchen) and even when I am reading, I have such a small tired attention span that I can barely keep track of anything. This is a big book, a...