Sunday, January 28, 2007

Question for US Harry Potter Readers

...from someone who first read Harry Potter as children's books to my own children and wasn't all that impressed by them, particularly Chamber of Secrets:

At what point did you discover that the versions published by Scholastic were different than the versions published in the UK and countries that speak The Queen's English? Before you ever read them? After reading but before you became involved with fandom? Between books 5 and 6 when it made the news? When you were informed that a word in your fic which is also in your version of the books was unacceptable to a Canadian reader?

Did it affect anything for you...did you buy/read the UK books in their entirety, look up specific bits of text, or not particularly worry/care? Did you feel that Scholastic had robbed you as an adult reader, or had robbed millions of US children of the unedited version? If you have children, which versions did you give them or read to them?

Do you think this is likely an issue outside of organized fandom...that there are readers, teachers, parents and kids who strongly feel that either both versions or just the UK versions should be available in the US? Does anyone know whether Scholastic has been asked/told that maybe they could make more money selling the UK editions, or if there's a licensing reason they can't?

No comments: