But what I think is so interesting and frightening about religious conservatives’ campaign against this movie is that they admit the content of the movie itself is hardly objectionable (from their perspective). What they are complaining about is that the Hollywood glam treatment MIGHT (cue scary music) lead children to actually read the book. How frightening is that? And author Phillip Pullman’s atheistic agenda is really not evident in the first book; I think a child reading that one would simply conclude that adults with authority are criminally insane, not that there is some inherently evil quality in the church. (There is one very evil adult who is fighting against the church.) And even in the third book, when the theology gets more explicit, I would hardly call it atheist (although I know Pullman calls it that himself). There is a god in the final battle, but not an omnipotent one, for that god has been imprisoned by the church. There is lots that children might want to talk about from this, but I don’t think it leads to necessarily atheistic conclusions. But, truth be told, I think kids will simply read these books as fantasy adventure stories, and extremely good ones at that.