I was thrilled when my child began reading the Harry Potter series. Actually that's not quite accurate. I didn't know anything about the books until I started reading them at the same time he did.

He wasn't a reader, but he dove into those books like nobody's business. That thrilled me, but what really thrilled me were the values in the books.

Those values meant a lot to him as a child who had been neglected and badly abused starting very early in life. In many ways (until he came to live with my partner and me), he really was the child living in a closet under the stairs.

I think that's what attracted him to the books in the first place. Then, I constantly saw signs that he was internalizing positive values that I hold dear, values that he got from the books, to be clear.

Rowling wrote what she wrote. She wrote a book about accepting difference, not judging people for how they were born but how they chose to live, primarily by how they chose to exercise kindness.

Pretty much all of Rowling's heroic figures are kind. That's what sets them apart as the good guys.

Maybe that's simplistic, but it's not a terrible message to give children, is it?

It's a lesson Rowling would do well to take for herself.