We watched the Harry Potter movie a few weeks ago with the kids and greatly enjoyed it. They've watched it at least once a day since then. Picked up the first book at Target the other night and I'm reading a chapter a night to my son. He's loving it, despite the lack of pictures. He asks questions about unicorns, magic, trolls, etc. and we answer him forthrightly...for the record, we tell him that magic isn't real, that trolls and unicorns don't exist. If he should find real magic later in life, we have done him no disservice.

I remember the hooraw when the books first became popular. Religious groups went insane and I swear the Inquisition thought about getting back together for a Reunion Tour. They were to be the downfall of all of our children, a guidebook for their path straight to Hay-ull, and, indeed, a direct line to Satan himself.

None of this happened, of course.

And yet studies still crop up that claim that these four books and one movie are surely driving our children to "experiment in occult-like activities" and "become more interested in witchcraft."

And that makes them different from children who haven't read Harry Potter exactly how?

And who commissioned the study? Why, the director of WisdomWorks Ministries, that's who...an organization that teaches teen-agers and parents how to "view life from God's perspective." (Interesting that they are uniquely qualified to know what this is, hmm?) The director calls the survey's results "significant," even though only 12% of the 41% who have actually seen the movie/books say that they've made them more interested in "witchcraft," in other words, roughly 5 out of 100 kids.

I don't think anyone needs to worry about being turned into a toad just yet.