Sorcerer stone v Philosopher Stone WAS: Hermione

[dumbledore11214]

> Magpie:
> The original book is middle grade fiction, so I don't think it's insulting to want to let third graders who haven't yet heard of what the Philosopher's Stone is that the book's about magic. These are kids who quite possibly haven't read modern fantasy literature yet. This could be their first. There's plenty of kids who might know at that age, but removing that one extra barrier doesn't have to be insulting imo. They might only have a minute where the kid's passing over the titles and they want to grab him/her.
> 
> -m
>


Alla:

I do understand what you are saying Magpie about wanting to grab right audience and fast, but still I think I have to agree with Miles again :-)

I mean, the reason why they would want to grab the right audience with changing the word, the underlying assumption is that the audience may not know the definition, right?

That they will not know that the philosopher stone is what it is and thus can mistakenly think that this is about philosophy, etc, right?

And yeah, I do find it insulting. I mean, I grant you that I judge based on myself and when I learned what "philosopher stone" is and maybe I should not expect from all kids to know that.

But it just seems one of those very basic definitions which really are IMO cornerstones of humanitarian education.

I learned about it when I was either six or seven and no, I did not read fantasy at that age AT ALL. My first fantasy book was LOTR which I did not finish in translation when I was twenty something and read and loved when I came here, but every other fantasy book I read when I was living here.

And I learned about it from the book for kids talking about medicine, very basic book by the way.

Alla.