THERE'S this book - a worldwide best-seller - jam packed with violence, evil, magic, sorcery and sex. It's brimming with witchcraft and wizardry, temptation and all manner of nasty people killing, maiming and thieving.

No, not Harry Potter - the Bible. Like Harry Potter, this X-rated adult book concerns the battle between good and evil. Even JK Rowling could not come up with the amazing range of imaginative magic: people being turned into salt just for peeping; water being turned into wine; walking sticks changing into snakes and people being miraculously healed by one man's touch.

Now, I've never read a Harry Potter book, nor seen one of the films. One day, maybe. But they tell me he's an apprentice wizard on the side of goodness against the forces of darkness.

Good, clean adventure and excitement that has taken the world by storm. But he will never rival sales of the Bible over the centuries, especially with its sordid, sex-in-the-city tales of Sodom and Gomorrah, those Las Vegas cities of biblical times.

So imagine my sheer incredulity when I hear that a school in Lincolnshire has had to cancel a Harry Potter day because it could lead the children into "areas of evil."

The primary school pupils at Skellingthorpe were going to dress up as wizards and witches and have some fun with magical maths and spelling invention. But some parents and the local clergyman objected because they were worried about witchcraft.

Ye gods! Oh, sorry, that's probably 'evil' too. No doubt they'll all be made to spend the day reading testaments old and new.

Has anybody heard of Skelling-thorpe? Has anybody ever been? Is there tumbleweed blowing down the main street as terrified locals peer through shuttered windows at any corrupting stranger? Or do menfolk armed with pitchforks turn away visitors while behind them rages a huge bonfire of wicked Harry Potter books?

But why not join these fanatics? Let's burn those books we deem 'unsuitable'. Forget that reading fantasy fiction could be the one small step that sets a child on the road to a lifetime of loving literature, of finding something other than computer games to pass the time.

Sleeping Beauty for starters, Cinderella (all those shape-changers and fairy god-mothers), Snow White (hello, witchy stepmum!), Peter Pan. And how about the RSPCA having a go at Red Riding Hood? Why didn't the woodsman get the wolf a social worker for swallowing grandma, rather than cutting the poor thing open?

The Skellingthorpe parents and their meddling priest have insulted their children by not crediting them with the common sense to know fantasy from reality.

And if they try to deliver them from evil, they must also shield them from the real evil of reality. No doubt newspapers and TV news bulletins are also banned in this medieval hamlet.

I'm ashamed to live in the next county to these superstitious peasants.

No doubt the village streets echo in silence in the evenings as the bogtrotters of Skellingthorpe settle down to some harmless television viewing. They probably even let the kids watch as TV trash glamorises rape, incest, betrayal and murder, claiming it is 'everyday life' in a London square or a Northern terraced street well before the mythical magic time of 9pm. Let us rather ban the books that allow children's imaginations to take flight with a boy on a broomstick.

My daughter's English teacher once told me to let youngsters read anything - horror stories, fashion magazines, even comics. If it got them into the habit of reading, it was worth it.

If you ever get into Skellingthorpe you may see a minority of unfortunate residents staggering around with bleeding scalps. They'll be the teachers who are pulling out their hair at the sheer ignorance of the parents.

Let's face it, if someone at your garden party turned water into wine when your kids were watching, wouldn't you rather they were tucked up in their bedrooms with a good "Killer Zombie Grand Theft Pedal Cycle" play station game?

Updated: 08:45 Tuesday, July 19, 2005