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By fourth or fifth grade, most children can distinguish between Shrek and the real world, between Veggie-Tales and vegetables. While you read to your children, you can make sure they understand the important thing in Harry Potter is not the way spells work, but what sets brave Harry apart from proud Malfoy and power-hungry Voldemort. Pay attention as Harry responds to the devil's temptations. It is the Darth Vader-ish villain who snarls, "There is no good and evil; there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." Harry bravely disagrees.

The gulf between the religion of real witchcraft and the use of symbolic magic in storytelling is vast. Rowling's fantasies, like The Chronicles of Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, and The Lord of the Rings before them, give readers a whimsical language for discussing the forces at work inside them and around them. Harry's magical gifts are symbols, metaphors for mysterious things in the real world, invisible powers like creativity, love, hate, humility, pride, generosity, and selfishness. Science fiction does the same thing—just exchange magic wands with lightsabers or laser guns, magic brooms with the Starship Enterprise or pod racers, spells with secret codes in The Matrix.

Approach your movies and your storybooks the way you approach Thanksgiving dinner. There's a lot on the table—you can stuff your face with some of it, but you've got to be careful with others. Sure, it's conceivable that someone could choke on a bone. Should we skip the turkey out of fear and settle for a plate of mashed potatoes?

Happy Thanksgiving. Chew your movies carefully.

Copyright © 2001 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Earlier Film Forum postings include these other movies in the box-office top ten: Shallow Hal, Heist, Monsters, Inc., K-Pax, 13 Ghosts, The One, Domestic Disturbance, and Life as a House.

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November (Web-only) 2001, Vol. 45