Harry Potter, Evil? Oh, Hogwarts

Harry Potter, Harry Potter, Harry Potter. Everywhere I go now, I hear about Harry Potter. Six weeks ago, I had never even heard the name Harry Potter. I didn’t know Harry Potter from Peter Piper.

“Who’s Harry Potter?” I asked a woman in a bookstore who had just asked about a book by Harry Potter.

“Who’s Harry Potter!!!” she replied, as if I had just asked who was Donald Duck.

“I don’t know his books,” I said somewhat sheepishly, although I have never actually listened to a sheep.

“You don’t know Harry Potter?” this middle-aged woman continued, tsk-tsk- tsk’ing me, clucking her tongue. “Don’t you have children?”

“No,” I said, a little discombobulated now, never having been clucked at before. “Wait a second. I mean yes.”

“And you’ve never heard of Harry Potter?” she asked.

The clerk behind the counter was looking at me now. I looked behind me. Five people in line were looking at me.

I could hear them whispering: “He’s never heard of Harry Potter.”

“Who hasn’t heard of Harry Potter?”

“That idiot up there.”

Then all five clucked at me.

I was sweating Niagara Falls when the clerk said to the woman next to me: “We’re all out of Harry Potter today. Would you like me to order the Harry Potters for you?”

“No need,” she said. “I already have them all.”

She jerked her thumb in my direction.

“Order him some.”

*

Harry Potter, Harry Potter. How could I be so out of touch? I scan best-seller lists. I frequent bookstores. I’m a frequent frequenter. I’m a book freak.

Why, just the other day I helped out a customer in the very same bookstore where the Harry Potter lady clucked me.

“Oh, dear,” this woman said, possibly to herself. “I can’t find it.”

“Can’t find what?” I asked, Mr. Helpful.

“‘Angela’s Ashes.”’

Now, that I’d heard of.

I told her, “That’s a splendid book.”

“Well,” she said, “all I know is that it’s an Oprah book.”

An Oprah book.

Ah, yes, I said sarcastically. I believe that book was indeed written by Oprah McCourt, about her Irish roots.

Then I explained that “Angela’s Ashes” by Frank McCourt had been quite a big seller for a couple of years. But this woman only knew that Oprah Winfrey likes good books and that Oprah says this book is good.

(Oprah Winfrey’s opinion counts. If Oprah Winfrey said a book was good with salt and pepper, her fans would cook and eat it.)

Anyway, it served me right a few days later when I had my Harry Potter humiliation. Particularly when the bookstore’s clerk showed me the fiction best-seller list:

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.”

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.”

“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.”

I was aghast.

For one thing, I had presumed that Harry Potter was the author.

It turns out that Harry’s stories are written by a 33-year-old Scottish woman named J.K. Rowling, and that they are . . .

“Children’s books?” I said aloud.

“Well, only partly,” the clerk told me. “Some adults seem to be buying them for themselves.”

How fast things change.

One week, the best-sellers are by Tom Clancy, John Grisham, Danielle Steel, Stephen King, the usual suspects. Plus a self-help book and a diet book. (Same thing.) Plus a cookbook and a Hannibal Lecter book. (Same thing.)

A few weeks later, there are three best-sellers about a magical boy named Harry who attends the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Know what? I’m glad.

At least it’s a welcome break from the 5,000 different books out right now about 5,000 different private detectives.

*

I was just beginning to appreciate this Harry Potter phenomenon when I read that certain parents don’t want children reading books about witchcraft and wizardry.

Yeah, we wouldn’t want that.

Let’s also ban that story about the giant with the beanstalk who goes “fe, fi, fo, fum” and smells the blood of an Englishman. Too intense for children. And that story about the witch and that woman who lives with the seven dwarfs. Definitely unsuitable for children.

And don’t forget to burn that story about the fairy godmother. I mean, this woman is clearly into witchcraft. And definitely don’t let your kids read that Hansel and Gretel garbage. Too spooky for small minds. Too evil.

Get serious. A little Harry Potter isn’t going to hurt anybody. We finally get some books that kids want to read, and now parents don’t want kids to read them?

I personally can’t wait to read all of these books.

Particularly the next one: “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Oprah.”

*

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053. E-mail:

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