[Mr. Phillips] when I read your article, “Harry Potter and the Lavender Brigade,” I thought you might be intrested in the letter I entered in the “Letters About Literature” 2007 contest, sponsored by the Library of Congress and the National Center for the Book. My letter was selected as a state semi-finalist for Indiana.

Dear Ms. Rowling,

Thank you for writing your book, The Sorcerer’s Stone. I read it this past spring, and it changed my life forever! I loved it. I made a wand out of wood, and after that broke, I used any stick I could find.

Later, I read The Half-Blood Prince, and watched the first two movies with my mom. It was clear she did not approve. “Come on,” I questioned her, “It’s just a story. Why are you so against it?”

Imagine my surprise when she answered, “It’s not just a story. There are people who really believe they can have magical powers. And some are able to work miracles using that power. My question is where is that power coming from?”

I was shocked, “People can’t actually work miracles, can they?”

“Absolutely! Producing objects out of thin air, healing or making people sick, levitating, on and on. What is unrealistic in these books is the idea that people are in control of the magic. In real life, they are being controlled by it.”

I was shocked! I had been enjoying your Harry Potter’s adventures, believing that it was all completely imaginary. A story about people using questionable powers was not something I wanted to be enjoying.

But then. what did my mom know?

In my school, I have the freedom to direct some of my studies. That year, I was immersing myself in medieval history and culture, so Harry Potter fit right in. I had also read all of The Chronicles of Narnia, Tamara Pierce’s books on Tortall, and many others filled with delicious fantasy and magic, to round out my textbook studies. I wasn’t sure who or what to believe, so I went where I always go when I have a question-to the library.

I started with The Beautiful Side of Evil, by Johanna Michaelsen. She was a companion and aid to a powerful, miraculous New Age healer for years, before realizing she was ensnared in a destructive darkness, though it seemed so beautiful. The book made a lot of sense, but what is one book? Especially held up against your enthralling Harry Potter!

So I kept reading. I devoured book after book, watched one video after another, on the subjects of world religions, New Age, Occult, and magic. I was amazed to discover an obvious, continuous theme-as old as the serpent in the Garden. “Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Yet, India, the glorious center of so many of these philosophies, is a miserable dump of poverty, sickness, death, abuse, drugs, and immorality-with the same fruit following everywhere these ideas take root.

Finally, this summer, I went to summer camp. There, I experienced the love of God and realized I could know Him personally. I became a different person, kinder to my siblings, and began to understand love.

This year, I have chosen to focus all of my studies on the Bible and early church history. I love my Hebrew classes! On the whole I am a much happier person than I was a year ago. My old dream of becoming an actress seems dull, compared to my newborn vision of sharing with others the truths that have set me free.

I’ve had a voracious appetite for books since I was six years old, so I have probably read thousands of books. But nothing has ever changed my life like The Sorcerer’s Stone.

              Changed Forever,
              Grace Lahti

P.S. I’m still finding wands everywhere, but now I discard them as the useless plastic scraps that they are.