The Telegraph (UK) reports today that a Benedictine monk has discovered that there is edifying Christian meaning in Joanne Rowling’s Harry Potter stories and has written a book to explore the parallels with C. S. Lewis’ work and how magic is ethically neutral at Hogwarts.

The keeper quotation: “They are full of Christian themes of love and sacrifice.”

Who knew!? Hats off to the newcomer, Fr. Luke of Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wright. And a hat tip to David G., for sharing this link with all of us.

Yes, you can listen to the complete Jim Dale audio recordings of Order of the Phoenix at YouTube. I know that Travis and others won’t want to do that — ever — because they prefer the Stephen Frye readings, but I was startled to see this. I’ve bought the tapes so I don’t have any legal or ethical qualms about listening to the book online, but isn’t this a copyright violation? What am I missing?

I received a wonderful letter today from a school teacher who had just finished reading Harry Potter’s Bookshelf. After saying very kind things about Bookshelf, she wanted to know what I thought about a comment Ms. Rowling made in a 1999 interview with Dan Hulbert (“Just wild about Harry: Dedicated fans of a young wizard have Scottish scribe J.K. Rowling to thank,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, October 22, 1999). In that discussion with an American reporter, the author, sharing her frustration with Christian objections to the book, made a pointed comment about the metaphorical meaning of magic in her stories.

First, the original statement as it was reported: [Read more…]

As you’ve probably noticed, HogwartsProfessor is ‘under renovation.’ In addition to the retro look, if you’re writing me at john at HogwartsProfessor dot com, I’m not receiving your mail today (try john at zossima dot com). Thank you for your patience while the house-elves work their digital magic.

I don’t know whether I can post during reconstruction but here is something I hope you will enjoy. I get two or three letters a week from serious readers who take the time to tell me they have read my books. Often times, they write to share mistakes they’ve found, which is a great help, thank you very much. Not as often, maybe once or twice a year, I get chewed out; last week a mom wrote me to say she had just read Looking for God in Harry Potter and she was still convinced Harry was evil (cue passages from Leviticus). It turns out she had read Looking and watched the first three movies. Oh, well. Orson Scott Card said, in response to Mark Twain’s comment that the Book of Mormon was “chloroform in print,” that “no book can survive a hostile reading.” Certainly that is true of Looking and Harry Potter.

Every once in a while, though, I get a letter that makes me laugh out loud or blush. Yesterday I received one that made me do both. It was so flattering and humorous that I have to suspect it is a prank; remember when it used to be Ivy League sport to write outrageous, fictional letters about Jerry Springeresque personal situations to Dear Abby to see if she’d answer with advice in print? A testimony like this one, forgive me, made me think the guy was pulling my leg. Anyway, I got his permission to post it. You decide. [Read more…]

The New York Times wants us to know that “the future of reading” or, at least the “latest thing in classroom gimmicks this fall,” is teachers letting students read what they like.

Fans of the reading workshop say that assigning books leaves many children bored or unable to understand the texts. Letting students choose their own books, they say, can help to build a lifelong love of reading.

“I feel like almost every kid in my classroom is engaged in a novel that they’re actually interacting with,” Ms. McNeill said, several months into her experiment. “Whereas when I do ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,” I know that I have some kids that just don’t get into it.” [Read more…]