Harry Potter’s Ventura County Adventure

After I finished snuggling up with the first volume of the famous Harry Potter series, I spent a twisted, tortured night.

It wasn’t the image of poor Harry, the orphan treated like dirt by his aunt, uncle and pig-like cousin.

And it wasn’t the horrors he encountered at the Hogwarts magic school--the ravenous six-headed guard dog, the stinking 12-foot troll, the evil teacher who tried to kill poor Harry by casting a spell on his flying broomstick, the student who zapped the evil teacher with a jolt of blue flame, the forbidden forest with its murdered unicorns, or any of the other trials managed quite handily by our 11-year-old hero.

What upset me far more were the dangers Harry faces in Moorpark and Simi Valley, where a small but determined group of parents vows to boot him from the classroom.

When I told a crusading Moorpark mother that I thoroughly enjoyed “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” she had a quick reply.

“You’re looking at it from the viewpoint of an adult, not the viewpoint of a child,” Teresa Schmidt said.

When I told her my daughter enjoyed the portions I shared with her, Schmidt had another, equally quick reply.

“Well, she has no discernment,” Schmidt instantly concluded. “She doesn’t know right from wrong.”

Ah.

That’s what makes me so enjoy these periodic battles about book-banning. When I was in high school, it was “Catcher in the Rye.” At various times, it’s been “Charlotte’s Web,” “Huckleberry Finn,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and on and on. Hostility is often high. If you disagree with those who are so eager to protect your children, you are not merely wrong; you are twisted, negligent, evil, a dupe of dark forces, and, as in my case, a bad parent.

Now that you’re adequately warned about the moral limbo in which I dwell, let’s get down to cases.

The Harry Potter novels are not required reading in Simi Valley or Moorpark. But a few teachers who like the wildly popular books have dared to read chapters to their fourth-graders, who, along with older students, are known to go crazy for Harry Potter.

More than 5 million of the novels have been sold in the last two years. Web sites have sprung up like toadstools. School officials have reported a sudden drop in attendance when the author, a single mother from England named J.K. Rowling, appears at book-signings nearby.

But around the U.S., there has been stirring by uneasy parents: Are the books too gruesome? they ask. Do they encourage a belief in witchcraft? Will young Johnny--who seems so normal now--experience Harry Potter flashbacks as a teenager and zap an unlikable teacher with a jolt of blue flame?

In Moorpark, Teresa and Dominic Schmidt transferred their fourth-grader to another school rather than have him remain with a teacher who reads Harry Potter. In Simi, a class sits engrossed by Harry Potter, but one boy is allowed into another classroom with his copy of “Swiss Family Robinson.”

To the families involved, such accommodations aren’t enough.

“Harry Potter erodes all of our morals, all of our standards,” said Teresa Schmidt. “It doesn’t belong in any public school, at any grade level.”

To its great credit, a committee of Moorpark parents, teachers and administrators has decided that Harry Potter is OK for “recreational” reading in the classroom. Offended parents may have their children go elsewhere during these sessions.

A similar committee will soon be convened in Simi Valley. Among other things, it will take into account that just one Harry Potter complaint has been lodged, a school official said.

For her part, Schmidt said she has not yet decided whether to appeal the Moorpark district’s decision. But if she does, she’ll be amply prepared.

“The book talks a lot about witchcraft,” she says. “It openly speaks of black magic, of getting strength from drinking animal blood.”

Children can become upset by Harry’s abuse at home, she contends. He’s forced to live in a spider-infested cupboard, and his aunt and uncle relentlessly mock him. And there certainly are episodes of cruelty, as when Harry’s greedy cousin is suddenly endowed with a pig’s tail protruding from his rear.

“They’re making fun of fat people,” said Schmidt, pointing out that flies in the face of today’s push for tolerance.

Her copy of “Sorcerer’s Stone” is well-marked. If you’re following at home, she has highlighted offensive material on pages 2, 12, 13, 20, 38, 55, 73, and 137, among many others. On page 155, it should be noted, Harry and his pal flagrantly defy the school rules. On page 219, there is a reference to “the twelve uses of dragon’s blood.” Etc., etc.

Personally, I’ll trust America’s kids to realize dragons do not exist. And I’ll also trust them to be lustily curious about the 12--a full dozen?--uses for their blood. I’ll trust them, too, to know the liberating thrill of an imaginative story, and I’ll trust their teachers to know the difference between literary trash and literary treasure.

That might be too much trust, but what else would you expect from someone as helplessly twisted as myself? When I was in high school, they let me read “Catcher in the Rye,” and it ruined me for life.

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Steve Chawkins can be reached at 653-7561 or by e-mail at steve.chawkins@latimes.com.