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A Harry Situation

I was in the Girl Scout store today picking up some badges and I happened across a book which purportedly teaches Brownies all about "Storytelling." It was cool -- there were activities on writing and putting on plays and recording tales from the past and so forth. But then I flipped to a section about "Girls' Favorite Books," in which a girl named Madison enthused about the Harry Potter books. To paraphrase loosely, Madison says that she likes to imagine ways to help out her favorite characters or to advise them so that some of their situations come out differently. For example, in Book Six, the home of Madison's favorite character, Ginny Weasley, is destroyed by the evil Death Eaters. Madison thinks that if Ginny had asked for help from her friends, this tragedy wouldn't have happened.

Wait, what? That didn't happen in Book Six. It happened -- nonsensically -- in the sixth movie, and even then I'm not sure how Madison's advice -- if there even is a Madison -- would have applied. But the movie is not the book, and I'm really appalled that a book which is supposed to, in part, teach girls to read critically made this mistake.

I'm trying to decide if I should complain to someone about this. In the grand scheme of things it's no big deal -- and believe me, I'm not just upset because they've messed with Harry. (Even though I adore Harry.) If Madison had instead come up with advice on how Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird could have avoided breaking her arm, I'd be equally annoyed. It's the principle of the thing, really.

And, you know, you really shouldn't mess with Harry.

Comments

aimee said…
And I hated that they put that in the movie! That makes me mad too. She probably has never even read the books.

Oh and by the way, you probably should never go to fan fiction.net. That is all these "writers" (and I use that term loosely because some cannot write a complete sentence to save their life) do. I happened across it by accident and was saddened.
3:44 PM
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