The Lawrence Journal (Kansas, USA)

The Lawrence Journal (Kansas, USA) tells us one of these strange anti-Harry stories from the U.S.:

Last week, children had planned to attend a special presentation on Muggles, the ordinary humans portrayed in the best-selling Harry Potter series, at the Oskaloosa Public Library. That is, until the library’s board pulled the plug on Thursday’s reading program after a handful of residents complained their children would learn witchcraft from the books.

In her 18 years serving as the librarian, Paula Ware said nothing as strange as this has happened before. She said there’s a small faction in the community who thought she was going to teach children about witchcraft at the presentation. “They felt very threatened by the evil factor in the book,” she said. “I’ve tried to explain to them these are fantasy books and millions of people have read the books all over the world.”

Ware ran an ad in the local newspaper, promoting the library’s “Hogwarts Class.” The ad states the class called “Muggle Studies” is for “aspiring young witches and wizards.” Ware said, she doesn’t have time to put up a fight and wants to put the incident behind her. “It’s my busiest time of the year, and I don’t want to enter into a confrontation,” she said. “But if this had been about banning the books, I would have taken this to the Supreme Court.”