| Harry Potter Goes to College. Page 2. |
The Harry Potter novels were born in England. According to Publishers Weekly, native J.K. Rowling was a struggling author in 1990 when she got the idea for Harry Potter. By 1994, she was working on her first novel with a clear vision, but she was confronted with poverty. A single mother, she lived on public assistance as she worked to finish and sell her novel. Three book publishers turned Rowling down, saying her book was too long for children. The fourth, Bloomsbury Books, helped her cash in on her creation. The American rights to the first book sold for $105,000 to Scholastic Books, which the British press considered the highest sum ever paid for a children's novel. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which the first novel was titled in England, was published in 1997. It became popular with children and adults alike, with bookstores selling out. U.S. readers ordered the books from British distributors through Amazon.com. Eventually, Scholastic published the book, now titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in the United States in 1998. Rowling's first book garnered more than just sales. The book also won numerous awards for children's literature, including a runner-up position for the 1998 Carnegie Medal for young adult fiction, the 1997 National Book Award (UK), among other awards. The books have also won the Gold Medal Smarties Prize (UK), a book award chosen by young readers, for three years in a row. Rowling has seven books planned for the series, but only four have been written and published so far. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Goblet of Fire are the follow-ups to The Sorcerer's Stone.
The Goblet of Fire is one of the popular Harry Potter books that is read in professor Vera Camden's Literature for Young Adults class.
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