Children's Literature Association Quarterly

J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series explores issues of belief and knowledge in ways that reflect our own society's multivalent relationship with both authority and conflicting sources of information. Cryptozoology and the paranormal—fields outside the consensus of mainstream science—are portrayed in the series through proponents who mean well but who are ultimately mistaken. Through her treatment of these peripheral communities of belief, Rowling implies that although knowledge acquisition is difficult and is an ongoing project, objective knowledge is possible even in the face of conflicting authorities.