While Harry Potter developed through his adolescence, he learned to make decisions, overcome difficulties of all kind — social and emotional — moreover, all kinds of teenager’s problems, such as misunderstanding, disagreements with his friends, teachers and enemies.
On top of everything, the author shows the important test of Harry Potter’s preparing for the confrontation lies ahead. The events described in each book occupy one year in Harry Potter’s life, though the main narration takes place between 1991;1998. The wizardry world (in comparison with the fantasy world of Tolkien’s Hobbits in the «Lord of the Rings») exists alongside with the real world. Furthermore, each real thing in the real world has its twin-brother in the imaginary world of Harry Potter. Thus, many towns, schools, cities, institutions are recognizable and the reader can guess about the phenomenon mentioned in the novel, London, for instance.
The popularity of Rowling’s novels was shocking — Forbes magazine’s Celebrity 100 list placed Joanne Kathleen Rowling as the 24-th-highest celebrity earner in the world. There were 30 million copies of her books issued around the world and translated into 67 languages.
Rowling said that the main theme of her books is death, despite the fact that it was children’s literature. The author reveals such eternal aspects of human life. Apparently, that is the insight secret of the enormous popularity of her novels among all generations of readers? Who knows?
Besides, there are many other themes in the series, such as corruption and prejudice.
The main publishing houses that printed her books were Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in the United States of America. Since then her books have been published worldwide. Moreover, a great commercial success of the books is revealed via film-version by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Joanne Rowling is considered to be among the most translated authors in the history. However, the translated version is being able to be published only after the books have been already released in English because of the stealing problems concerning intellectual property and piracy — copycats products — especially in non-English speaking countries.
The books also aroused controversies in the literary and publishing worlds. In 1997 to 1998 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone won almost all the UK awards judged by children, but none of the children’s book awards judged by adults,[126] and Sandra Beckett suggested the reason was intellectual snobbery towards books that were popular among children. 127] In 1999 the winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award children’s division was entered for the first time on the shortlist for the main award, and one judge threatened to resign if Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was declared the overall winner; it finished second, very close behind the winner of the poetry prize, Seamus Heaney’s translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf.
I n 2000, shortly before the publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the previous three Harry Potter books topped the New York Times fiction best-seller list and a third of the entries were children’s books. T he newspaper created a new children’s section covering children’s books, including both fiction and non-fiction, and initially counting only hardback sales. T
he move was supported by publishers and booksellers. 82] In 2004 The New York Times further split the children’s list, which was still dominated by Harry Potter books into sections for series and individual books, and removed the Harry Potter books from the section for individual books. T he split in 2000 attracted condemnation, praise and some comments that presented both benefits and disadvantages of the move.
T ime suggested that, on the same principle, Billboard should have created a separate «mop-tops» list in 1964 when the Beatles held the top five places in its list, and Nielsen should have created a separate game-show list when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? dominated the ratings.
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