Book Differences - the future

[pamscotland]

No: HPFGUIDX 40377

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "trisanagranger" <hyper_gal66 at h...> wrote:
>  Most people that age have no problem using
> "context clues" or whatever to figure out word's meanings.  
However, 
> younger readers might have more of a problem.  My 9-year-old 
brother 
> has problems with the books as they are now.  

I am very interested in the American perspective on the changes that 
have been made for the American market.  I have often wondered 
whether any changes are made to American books to suit the British 
market - and I think the answer is usually no changes are made.  

Now the fact that British children don't seem to have a problem 
reading American books may be because they have become used to 
Americanisms through watching a lot of American television 
programmes. I doubt that American children watch as much British 
television.  According to one local primary school teacher, it does 
become a problem when there is a popular American book and the 
children start dropping the u's from colour, flavour etc. etc. etc.  
And I don't think I'm the only Brit who feels a teeniest weeniest 
prickle when I hear or read 'math' rather than 'maths'! 

I do think, however, that younger children (probably age 9 and below) 
benefit from reading the Harry Potter books with an adult close by - 
particularly as the later ones get a little darker.  Apart from 
anything else, children do get into difficulties with pronunciation.  
I had discussed the pronuciation of many words in the books with my 
children only to be told that I must be wrong because all their 
friends pronounced them differently (and no, none of the other 
parents had read any of the books).  My credibility was restored when 
we all went to a JKR reading and, guess what, Mum was right all along 
(apart from Voldemort - for some obscure reason I was sure it was a 
silent t but I can't imagine why on earth I thought that).  It was 
clear from the questions put to JKR by children at the reading that 
many of them had problems pronouncing words which to an adult would 
probably have been fairly self-evident e.g. Triwizard - an adult is 
more likely to be familiar with the concept of tri- meaning three and 
would pronounce it Tri (to rhyme with 'eye') whereas a number of the 
kids were pronouncing Triwizard as though the i was very, very 
short.   JKR was great with them - correcting pronounciation very 
gently and then explaining why and where the word came from.   

Cheers for now

Pam