“Book Banning and Boggarts”

Abstract

The Harry Potter series has become an international children’s literary sensation. But despite his popularity, Harry Potter has had to face real life evils in the form of would-be censors. While book banning and censorship of children’s materials have been occurring for centuries, this year’s 10th anniversary of the Harry Potter series creates a unique opportunity to revisit and examine policies and practices to prevent censorship of children’s reading materials internationally. Using the Harry Potter series as an example of frequently challenged and banned books, this paper will examine how various libraries and library organizations in several North American and European countries prevent and respond to challenges to popular children’s literature. In the future, individuals and groups will most likely continue to challenge children’s popular literature. Therefore, it is important that libraries have an international perspective to understand the best tools and practices to meet these challenges. Confronting challenges to children’s materials is an important component of library accessibility. Using the popular Harry Potter series to examine and analyze book banning and related intellectual freedom policies will hopefully generate the interest for the attention this subject deserves.