SASKATOON, Saskatchewan, January 18, 2002 (LSN.ca) – The Saskatoon Catholic school board has agreed to investigate the Harry Potter book series after parents raised concerns that the books are inappropriate for children, especially Catholic children. The Canadian Press reports that the books are used as part of school lessons.
The nine trustees heard from Jason and Tracy Stupak, along with friends David and Trudy Waselyshen, who urged the board to remove the Harry Potter books from optional reader lists which can be used for book reports. While both couples have children, the children are not yet in school. David Waselyshen, father of two, the oldest of whom is two years old, told LifeSite that he was concerned that the series will gain in popularity in years to come as the successive volumes and films in the series are released. He asserted that by the time his children are in school the problematic series will be entrenched and much more difficult to excise from classrooms.
Waselyshen noted that only three of the nine board members had read even parts of the books and only two had seen the film. He urged them to read the books and see the film “from a child’s perspective” to assess the damage they could have in leading children into the occult.
See LifeSite’s page on Harry Potter: https://www.lifesitenews.com/features/harrypotter/index.html
See the CP coverage in the Toronto Star at: https://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1011266442205&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News