Looking Back on the Potter Panic Twenty Years Later

From 1999, the year after the first Harry Potter book was publish in America, through 2002 Harry Potter was #1 on the American Library Association’s list of the top ten “most challenged books.” In 2003 the Harry Potter series dropped to position #2 as the Alice series took over the #1 spot. Then in 2004 the Harry Potter series disappeared from the top-ten list completely and was not seen there again for more than fifteen years. This was the “Potter Panic” from about 1999 through 2004 – intense, widespread, and ultimately brief. Twenty years later we can look back on it and learn some things. Why did it happen? Who was involved? What were the issues? And why did it end so suddenly? What implications might the “Potter Panic” have for controversies surrounding Harry Potter today?