Was any of this really necessary?

Granted, Laura Mallory had every right to appeal to the Georgia Board of Education after Gwinnett County's school board denied her request to remove Harry Potter books from school shelves. But all the state board did was back Gwinnett's decision.

Ms. Mallory's request shouldn't have even come before Gwinnett's school board because it's so ludicrous. It's hard to believe that there are still people out there like Ms. Mallory clinging to the notion that the wildly successful Harry Potter books - filled with spell-casting, intrigue and fanciful fun - somehow draw children into paganism and witchcraft.

We agree with Ms. Mallory that kids today are "being bombarded with evil, constantly" through many media. But in her clamor to fight a fictional boy wizard, she completely misses one point: There is no evidence showing that kids worldwide are embracing witchcraft as a result of reading Harry Potter books.

Don't take our word for it. Here's Jessica Grimes, a 10-year-old who had this to say to the Gwinnett school board earlier this year: "The books never at any time turned me into a wizard or witch. I go to church every Sunday, go to Sunday school and never at any time did I think the books are true."

If Harry's detractors bothered to crack one of those books and read it - Ms. Mallory has admitted she hasn't - they would discover that moral responsibility is one of many positive themes that are presented to readers. Oh, kids learn about things from these books, all right - concepts such as friendship, courage and love. If anything, these books augment what proper parents are teaching their kids. These aren't a bunch of sinister how-to books teaching the best way to turn a person into a frog.

Ms. Mallory misses the two biggest parts of the picture: Harry Potter is fictional, and kids are smarter than she thinks. Readers of Harry Potter books don't become wizards any more than readers of Black Beauty become horses. If Harry Potter books have any magical power, they have the power to make a child's aversion to reading disappear.

Ms. Mallory mentions television, movies and video games as other portals of evil open to our kids. She's right. That's why parents need to take care of those negative influences first - the violent, misogynistic rappers; the movies with immoral and amoral messages; TV shows at their most tasteless. Those are the things that are far more likely for children to internalize as being real - not some work of fiction about a bespectacled teen who plays the occasional game of Quidditch.

Ms. Mallory and her ilk are tilting at the wrong windmill. Go fight the real enemies to our kids.