Name the Harry Potter Books

Are your studded boots the same things we call cleats? As to why they chose the word sorcerer to replace philosopher, Scholastic just didn't like the word and thought it wouldn't attract young American readers. They asked Rowling to come up with a different title. She is the one who suggested sorcerer, but she later regretted her decision. Since Scholastic owned only the American rights, the name was changed only in America, and she never agreed to changes for any of the later books, but she was an unknown author at the time and gave in to pressure from the publisher.

You know, we Americans don't think about it since we're so used to it, but "tennis shoes" is an odd term to apply to all generic sneakers/athletic shoes. So although "trainers" is strange to us, when we try to explain that we call them tennis shoes, it's really not any less strange. I, for one, rarely play tennis in my tennis shoes.

Being a Londoner, I personally call it American or American English. I also hate it when other British people use American words.

As far as children’s book adaptations go, the Harry Potter film series is definitely better than most young adult series like the Hunger Games and especially Twilight. But I say Lord of the Rings is superior.

UK universities offer degrees in fields other than wizardry?

I always heard that it was that her American editors and publishers, didn't trust American kids to know what a philosopher was. Sorcerer read better and JK was too new to and probably a bit intimidated to put her foot down at that point.

The fact that very few kids anywhere knew what a philosopher was at eleven ... which would be the audience she was aiming for I'd imagine ... mustn't have registered. I'm pretty sure it was only changed in the states after all.

not very difficult to write something age appropriate. And I wouldn't say she pulled it off, either. They were all boring. But I will grant you Twilight is way, way worse.

I agree entirely. If they encourage kids to read, that's got to be a good thing. Whether you like the stories or not (and I think they're great) she has certainly pulled off something that kids (and adults) want. If earning $1 Billion from book sales and licensing rights isn't achieving something then what is? As for the comment "it's "not very difficult to write something age appropriate" then where can we buy your books?

I have no problem if you've read the books and don't like them, but I'm curious, which children's books do you recommend instead? I agree, the movies could have been much better. I thought the last one was best, and contrary to most opinions, I thought Chris Columbus's first two were wonderful since they followed the books almost exactly and were children's movies rather than an attempt to please adult fans. The later ones that seemed to just connect the dots between action sequences and leave out pertinent background info were really annoying, but I still enjoyed them. However, I'll never forgive the omission in #4 of the Weasleys traveling to the Dursley home by Floo Network. I was eagerly awaiting that scene and couldn't believe they didn't include it in the movie. Same thing with Fudge visiting the Prime Minister. My SIL, who never read the books, was confused in the third movie because it wasn't made clear that Lupin, Sirius, James, and Pettigrew created the Marauder's Map.

Another disappointing movie scene omission for me was Arthur's stay in St. Mungo's Hospital after the snake attack and they saw Gilderoy Lockhart and also saw Neville visiting his parents. I would also have enjoyed seeing Hagrid and Olympe visit the giants in Order of the Phoenix, and Harry and friends attending Nearly Headless Nick's Death Day party instead of the Halloween feast. I know they couldn't include everything, but it seems as though if a scene wasn't an action scene or didn't include Harry as the main character it wasn't deemed worthy of inclusion, and that left out so many of the things I enjoyed in the books. I missed seeing Peeves, too, even though he is annoying.